If You Please,
Continued She, To Wait A Little, I Shall Not Be Long Before I Dispatch
You.
In speaking these words she went into her closet, and read over and
over the offers he had made, in which, with the strictest examination,
she could find nothing but what indicated the most perfect love, honour,
and generosity.
In the first transports of her soul she was tempted to
comply; but her second thoughts were absolutely against it. - Those very
reasons which would have prevailed with almost any other woman, made her
obstinate to refuse: - the more she found him worthy, the less could she
support the thoughts of giving him a beggar for a wife; and the more she
loved him, the less could she content to be obliged to him; so she took
but a small time for consideration, before she returned an answer in
these terms:
To the most accomplished, and most generous monsieur DU PLESSIS.
"As it was not owing to my pride or vanity,
but merely compliance with the will of
Melanthe, that my real meanness was made a
secret, I find it revealed without any mortification;
but, monsieur, the distance between us
is not shortened by being known: as the consciousness
of my unworthiness remains with
me, and ever must do so, I again repeat the
impossibility of accepting your too generous passion,
and, after this, you will not wonder I
should refuse those other obliging offers you are
so good to make. - I left my native country
with Melanthe, devoted myself to her service
while she was pleased to continue me in it, and
only wait her commands for my doing so, or to
return to England. - I believe, by what her
woman told me this day, the latter will be my
fate. - Think not, however, most truly worthy
of your whole sex, that I want eyes to distinguish
your merits, or a heart capable of being
influenced by them, perhaps too deeply for my
own future peace: - this is a confession I would
not have made, were I ever to see you more;
but as I am determined to shut myself from all
the world during my abode at Venice, I thought
I owed this little recompence to the generous
affection you express for me, and had rather you
should think any thing of me, than that I am
ungrateful.
LOUISA.
P.S. I beg, monsieur, after this, you will not
attempt either to speak or write to me."
When she had sent this away, she fell into fresh complainings at the
severity of her fate, which constrained her to refuse what most she
languished for: - the uncertainty how she should be disposed of was also
a matter of grief: - she was at this time a prisoner in Melanthe's house:
she had sent several messages to that lady, by her woman, entreating to
know in what she had offended, but could receive no other answer than
abuses, without one word which gave her the least light into the cause
of this strange treatment; but that morning she was informed, by the
same woman, that her Lady protested she should never more come into her
presence, and that she would send her home:
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