But
when proceeding, on the foot of having broken the ice, to
join discourse, he went into other leading questions, I put
so much innocence, simplicity, and even childishness into my
answers that on no better foundation, liking my person as he
did, I will answer for it, he would have been sworn for my
modesty. There is, in short, in the men, when once they are
caught, by the eye especially, a fund of cullibility that
their lordly wisdom little dreams of, and in virtue of which
the most sagacious of them are seen so often our dupes.
Amongst other queries he put to me, one was whether I was
married. I replied that I was too young to think of that
this many a year. To that of my age, I answered, and sunk
a year upon him, passing myself for not seventeen. As to my
way of life, I told him I had serv'd an apprenticeship to a
milliner in Preston, and was come to town after a relation,
that I had found, on my arrival, was dead, and now liv'd
journey-woman to a milliner in town. That last article,
indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass
for; but it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I
had inspir'd him with. After he had next got out of me,
very dextrously as he thought, what I had no sort of design
to make reserve of, my own, my mistress's name, and place of
abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the rarest and dearest
he could pick out, and sent me home, pondering on what might
be the consequence of this adventure.
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