Bildungsromans; England -- Fiction; Foundlings -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
This, however, soon recurred to his memory; and after the first
transports of their meeting were over, he found means by degrees to
introduce a discourse on the fatal consequences which must attend
their amour, if Mr Allworthy, who had strictly forbidden him ever
seeing her more, should discover that he still carried on this
commerce. Such a discovery, which his enemies gave him reason to think
would be unavoidable, must, he said, end in his ruin, and consequently
in hers. Since therefore their hard fates had determined that they
must separate, he advised her to bear it with resolution, and swore he
would never omit any opportunity, through the course of his life, of
showing her the sincerity of his affection, by providing for her in a
manner beyond her utmost expectation, or even beyond her wishes, if
ever that should be in his power; concluding at last, that she might
soon find some man who would marry her, and who would make her much
happier than she could be by leading a disreputable life with him.
Molly remained a few moments in silence, and then bursting into a
flood of tears, she began to upbraid him in the following words: “And
this is your love for me, to forsake me in this manner, now you have
ruined me! How often, when I have told you that all men are false and
perjury alike, and grow tired of us as soon as ever they have had
their wicked wills of us, how often have you sworn you would never
forsake me! And can you be such a perjury man after all? What
signifies all the riches in the world to me without you, now you have
gained my heart, so you have--you have--? Why do you mention another
man to me? I can never love any other man as long as I live. All other
men are nothing to me. If the greatest squire in all the country would
come a suiting to me to-morrow, I would not give my company to him.
No, I shall always hate and despise the whole sex for your sake.”--
She was proceeding thus, when an accident put a stop to her tongue,
before it had run out half its career. The room, or rather garret, in
which Molly lay, being up one pair of stairs, that is to say, at the
top of the house, was of a sloping figure, resembling the great Delta
of the Greeks. The English reader may perhaps form a better idea of
it, by being told that it was impossible to stand upright anywhere but
in the middle. Now, as this room wanted the conveniency of a closet,
Molly had, to supply that defect, nailed up an old rug against the
rafters of the house, which enclosed a little hole where her best
apparel, such as the remains of that sack which we have formerly
mentioned, some caps, and other things with which she had lately
provided herself, were hung up and secured from the dust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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