The History of Miss Betsy ThoughtlessHaywood, Eliza Fowler
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The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Haywood, Eliza Fowler
Abused wives -- Fiction; Bildungsromans; Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
In youth, when the blood runs high, and the spirits are in full
vivacity, affliction must come very heavy indeed, when it makes any deep
or lasting impression on the mind. That vexation which Miss Betsy had
brought upon herself, by going to the play with Miss Forward, was severe
enough the whole night, and the ensuing day. A great while, it must be
confessed, for a person of her volatile disposition; and when the more
violent emotions had subsided, the terror she had lately sustained, had,
at least, this good effect upon her; it made her resolve to take all
possible precautions not to fall into the like danger again. As she had
an infinite deal of generosity in her nature, when not obscured by that
pride and vanity which the flatteries she had been but too much
accustomed to, had inspired her with, she could not reflect how ill she
had treated Mr. Trueworth, and the little regard she had paid to the
tender concern he had shewn for her reputation, without thinking she
ought to ask his pardon, and acknowledge she had been in the wrong. If
Mr. Trueworth could have known the humour she was at present in, how
readily would he have flown to her with all the wings of love and kind
forgiveness! but as he had not the spirit of divination, and could only
judge of her sentiments by her behaviour, it was not in his power to
conceive how great a change had happened in his favour, through a just
sensibility of her own error.
She, in the mean time, little imagined how he far he resented the
treatment she had given him; especially as she heard he had been to wait
upon her the day in which she saw no company; and, after having passed
a night of much more tranquillity than the former had been, went down in
the morning to breakfast with her usual chearfulness. She had not been
many minutes in the parlour before she was agreeably surprized with the
sight of her elder brother, Mr. Thomas Thoughtless, who, it seems, had
arrived the night before. After the first welcomes were over, Mr.
Goodman asked him, wherefore he did not come directly to his house;
saying, he had always a spare bed to accommodate a friend; to which the
other replied, that he had come from Paris with some company whom he
could not quit, and that they had lain at the Hummums. Miss Betsy was
extremely transported at his return, and said a thousand obliging things
to him; all which he answered with more politeness than tenderness: and
this young lady soon perceived, by this specimen of his behaviour to
her, that she was not to expect the same affection from him, as she had
received so many proofs of from her younger brother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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