Note 03 — Chapter IX · TREATING OF LOVERS AND FRIENDS.

“Why, just in this way, miss. The Captain came to me last night, and told me you had received his addresses with the dutiful acceptance I had prepared him to expect in you. ‘But presently,’ says he, ‘talking with Miss, I discovered that if she honoured me with her hand, I could not hope to make her as happy as a lady of her beauty and merits has a right to expect. To force myself upon so charming a creature without that assurance which I failed to obtain would be to inflict undeserved misery on her, and a richly merited remorse on myself, but I am sensible that I would do her only a less harm by withdrawing from my suit. As a testimony, then, of my regard for the lady’s worth, and a compensation to her for the breaking-off of the match, I desire to make over to you for her use the sum of five thousand pounds, to be settled strictly upon herself,[03] whomsoever she may marry, and I will take it kindly in you, sir, to allow her to exercise her own choice in that particular.’ That I promised him at once, for ’twas all I could do for him, and indeed he has found the only way out of the difficulty.”