I picked out my man without much difficulty, by the judgment I made of his way of courting me.  I had let him run on with his protestations and oaths that he loved me above all the world; that if I would make him happy, that was enough; all which I knew was upon supposition, nay, it was upon a full satisfaction, that I was very rich, though I never told him a word of it myself.

This was my man; but I was to try him to the bottom, and indeed in that consisted my safety; for if he baulked, I knew I was undone, as surely as he was undone if he took me; and if I did not make some scruple about his fortune, it was the way to lead him to raise some about mine; and first, therefore, I pretended on all occasions to doubt his sincerity, and told him, perhaps he only courted me for my fortune.  He stopped my mouth in that part with the thunder of his protestations, as above, but still I pretended to doubt.

One morning he pulls off his diamond ring, and writes upon the glass of the sash in my chamber this line—­
     ‘You I love, and you alone.’

I read it, and asked him to lend me his ring, with which I wrote under it, thus—­

    ‘And so in love says every one.’

He takes his ring again, and writes another line thus—­

     ‘Virtue alone is an estate.’

I borrowed it again, and I wrote under it—­

     ‘But money’s virtue, gold is fate.’

He coloured as red as fire to see me turn so quick upon him, and in a kind of a rage told me he would conquer me, and writes again thus—­

     ‘I scorn your gold, and yet I love.’

I ventured all upon the last cast of poetry, as you’ll see, for I wrote boldly under his last—­

     ‘I’m poor:  let’s see how kind you’ll prove.’

This was a sad truth to me; whether he believed me or no, I could not tell; I supposed then that he did not.  However, he flew to me, took me in his arms, and, kissing me very eagerly, and with the greatest passion imaginable, he held me fast till he called for a pen and ink, and then told me he could not wait the tedious writing on the glass, but, pulling out a piece of paper, he began and wrote again—­

     ‘Be mine, with all your poverty.’

I took his pen, and followed him immediately, thus—­

     ‘Yet secretly you hope I lie.’

He told me that was unkind, because it was not just, and that I put him upon contradicting me, which did not consist with good manners, any more than with his affection; and therefore, since I had insensibly drawn him into this poetical scribble, he begged I would not oblige him to break it off; so he writes again—­

     ‘Let love alone be our debate.’

I wrote again—­

     ‘She loves enough that does not hate.’