‘Well, but, son,’ says the old lady, ’if you are disposed to let us into the mystery of it, what were these hard conditions?’ ‘Yes, madam,’ says Robin, ’I had done it before now, if the teasers here had not worried my by way of interruption.  The conditions are, that I bring my father and you to consent to it, and without that she protests she will never see me more upon that head; and to these conditions, as I said, I suppose I shall never be able to grant.  I hope my warm sisters will be answered now, and blush a little; if not, I have no more to say till I hear further.’

This answer was surprising to them all, though less to the mother, because of what I had said to her.  As to the daughters, they stood mute a great while; but the mother said with some passion, ’Well, I had heard this before, but I could not believe it; but if it is so, they we have all done Betty wrong, and she has behaved better than I ever expected.’  ‘Nay,’ says the eldest sister, ‘if it be so, she has acted handsomely indeed.’  ‘I confess,’ says the mother, ’it was none of her fault, if he was fool enough to take a fancy to her; but to give such an answer to him, shows more respect to your father and me than I can tell how to express; I shall value the girl the better for it as long as I know her.’  ‘But I shall not,’ says Robin, ’unless you will give your consent.’  ‘I’ll consider of that a while,’ says the mother; ’I assure you, if there were not some other objections in the way, this conduct of hers would go a great way to bring me to consent.’  ‘I wish it would go quite through it,’ says Robin; ’if you had a much thought about making me easy as you have about making me rich, you would soon consent to it.’

‘Why, Robin,’ says the mother again, ’are you really in earnest?  Would you so fain have her as you pretend?’ “Really, madam,’ says Robin, ’I think ’tis hard you should question me upon that head after all I have said.  I won’t say that I will have her; how can I resolve that point, when you see I cannot have her without your consent?  Besides, I am not bound to marry at all.  But this I will say, I am in earnest in, that I will never have anybody else if I can help it; so you may determine for me.  Betty or nobody is the word, and the question which of the two shall be in your breast to decide, madam, provided only, that my good-humoured sisters here may have no vote in it.’

All this was dreadful to me, for the mother began to yield, and Robin pressed her home on it.  On the other hand, she advised with the eldest son, and he used all the arguments in the world to persuade her to consent; alleging his brother’s passionate love for me, and my generous regard to the family, in refusing my own advantages upon such a nice point of honour, and a thousand such things.  And as to the father, he was a man in a hurry of public affairs and getting money, seldom at home, thoughtful of the main chance, but left all those things to his wife.