The History of Miss Betsy ThoughtlessHaywood, Eliza Fowler
General
The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Haywood, Eliza Fowler
Abused wives -- Fiction; Bildungsromans; Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
Amidst the enchanting encouragement with which you have been
pleased to admit my services, I would not, without calling your
honour and generosity in question, be altogether void of hope, that
you intended to afford them one day a recompence for ample than a
bare acceptance.
Judge, then, of my surprize at the repulse I met with at Mrs.
Modely's door. I could not think it any breach of the respect I owe
you, to call on you at the house of your mantua-maker; I could not
imagine it possible for you to have any engagements at such a place
capable of preventing you from keeping those that you had made with
persons for whom you profess an esteem: on the contrary, I rather
expected you would have permitted me to conduct you thence, with
the same readiness you have done from most of the other places
where you have been, since I first had the honour of being
acquainted with you.
I know very well, that it is the duty of every lover to submit, in
all things to the pleasure of the beautiful object whose chains he
wears, yet, Madam, as you have hitherto made mine easy, you must
pardon me, when I say, that this sudden transition from gentleness
to cruelty, appears to me to contain a mystery, which, though I
dread, I am distracted for the explanation of.
Some business of great moment prevents my waiting on you this
afternoon, but shall attend your commands to-morrow at the usual
hour; when, I still flatter myself, you will relieve the anxieties,
and put an end to the suspense, of him who is, with the greatest
sincerity of heart, Madam, your most humble, and most faithfully
devoted servant,
G. MUNDEN.'
Miss Betsy, at her return home, found also another billet directed for
her, which they told her had been brought by a servant belonging to Sir
Frederick Fineer: she gave that from Mr. Munden, however, the preference
of reading first, not indeed through choice, but chance, that happening
to be first put into her hands. As soon as she had looked it over, she
laughed, and said to herself, 'The poor man is jealous already, though
he knows not of whom, or why: what will become of him when he shall be
convinced? I suppose he was sure of having me, and it is high time to
mortify his vanity.'
She then proceeded to Sir Frederick's epistle; in which she found
herself more deified than ever she had been by all her lovers put
together.
'To the most wonderful of her sex, the incomparable Miss Betsy
Thoughtless.
Divine charmer,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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