am content to take the person he offers, let him be who he will: I shall expect nothing from him but insults; therefore shall not be surprized if I see myself sacrificed to some despicable wretch: but any, _any_ thing is better than to be in the power of such a tyrant! Madam, answered Pivet, you need not fear the being compelled to accept of an unworthy object: Mr Faulkland declares, that if you should absolutely dislike the gentleman, when you see him, he will be far from constraining you to take him for your husband. The other choice is still open to you, and, by what I can judge, Mr Faulkland seems to wish you would give that the preference. I would die first, cried Mrs Gerrarde--The fool, does he think I can be so entrapped? No, no; the authority of a husband, even of Faulkland's chusing, cannot be such a bar to my revenge as the walls of a nunnery would be.--Sir, I think myself obliged to you, and flatter myself you would have served me if you could. I may yet have it in my power to make you a return for your kind intentions towards me. I presume, when Mr Faulkland has disposed of his property, you will then be absolved of your promise to him in regard to me, and will still have charity enough to befriend an unfortunate woman. She wept, and Pivet owned he was ready to do so too; but constraining himself, protested she should command his life; and withdrew full of seeming uneasiness. He told me what had passed between him and the lady, and I could not help approving his management of the scene, though the rogue had stretched beyond the truth; but stratagems, you know, are allowable in love, and a lover he was now become in good earnest. He had taken care to alarm Mrs Gerrarde's apprehensions at every passage of access. He had informed her, that I had a husband for her in my thoughts; and at the same time, that he avoided the most distant hint of its being himself, he engaged her favour by seeming to wish it _were_. Then he took care to insinuate, at least, a possibility of her being refused by the person designed for her, and this he very naturally supposed would raise his own consequence with her, in case any suspicion should fall on him, of his being the intended husband. He pretended I had taken umbrage at his visiting her, still more to inflame her resentment against me, and increase her impatience to deliver herself out of my hands; at the same time he artfully hinted that he was not the man destined to be happy. This, as he saw already he was not unacceptable to her, he thought would make him doubly welcome, when she should find herself no worse off. Then the nunnery was mentioned, in terrorem, with broad hints of my resolution. In short, Pivet played his part so cunningly, that it had all the effect he could have wished; and Mrs Gerrarde, finding her spirit matched, was obliged to surrender at discretion.