"He looked at me with an air of ridiculous simplicity, and said, 'How
prone the woman is to _wonder_! You call the work excellent, and yet
_wonder_ that I do not make myself a slave to improve my skill! Did you
learn needlework from seven years' squatting on a tailor's board? Had
you come to me, I would have taught you in a day.' "'I was taught at school.' "'And paid your instructor?' "'To-be-sure.' "''Twas liberty and money thrown away. Send your sister, if you have
one, to me, and I will teach her without either rod or wages. Will you?' "'You have an old and a violent antipathy, I believe, to any thing like
a school.' "'True. It was early and violent. Had not you?' "'No. I went to school with pleasure; for I thought to read and write
were accomplishments of some value.' "'Indeed? Then I misunderstood you just now. I thought you said that,
had you the strength of a man, you should prefer the plough and the book
to the needle. Whence, supposing you a female, I inferred that you had a
woman's love for the needle and a fool's hatred of books.' "My father calling me from without, I now made a motion to go. 'Stay,'
continued he, with great earnestness, throwing aside his
knitting-apparatus, and beginning in great haste to pull off his
stockings. 'Draw these stockings over your shoes. They will save your
feet from the snow while walking to your horse.' "Half angry, and half laughing, I declined the offer. He had drawn them
off, however, and, holding them in his hand, 'Be persuaded,' said he;
'only lift your feet, and I will slip them on in a trice.' "Finding me positive in my refusal, he dropped the stockings; and,
without more ado, caught me up in his arms, rushed out of the room, and,
running barefoot through the snow, set me fairly on my horse. All was
done in a moment, and before I had time to reflect on his intentions. He
then seized my hand, and, kissing it with great fervour, exclaimed, 'A
thousand thanks to you for not accepting my stockings. You have thereby
saved yourself and me the time and toil of drawing on and drawing off. Since you have taught me to wonder, let me practise the lesson in
wondering at your folly, in wearing worsted shoes and silk stockings at
a season like this. Take my counsel, and turn your silk to worsted and
your worsted to leather. Then may you hope for warm feet and dry. What! Leave the gate without a blessing on your counsellor?' "I spurred my horse into a gallop, glad to escape from so strange a
being. I could give you many instances of behaviour equally singular,
and which betrayed a mixture of shrewdness and folly, of kindness and
impudence, which justified, perhaps, the common notion that his
intellects were unsound. Nothing was more remarkable than his
impenetrability to ridicule and censure. You might revile him for hours,
and he would listen to you with invincible composure. To awaken anger or
shame in him was impossible. He would answer, but in such a way as to
show him totally unaware of your true meaning. He would afterwards talk
to you with all the smiling affability and freedom of an old friend. Every one despised him for his idleness and folly, no less conspicuous
in his words than his actions; but no one feared him, and few were angry
with him, till after the detection of his commerce with _Betty_, and his
inhuman treatment of his father." "Have you good reasons for supposing him to have been illicitly
connected with that girl?" "Yes. Such as cannot be discredited. It would not be proper for me to
state these proofs. Nay, he never denied it. When reminded, on one
occasion, of the inference which every impartial person would draw from
appearances, he acknowledged, with his usual placid effrontery, that the
inference was unavoidable. He even mentioned other concurring and
contemporary incidents, which had eluded the observation of his
censurer, and which added still more force to the conclusion. He was
studious to palliate the vices of this woman, as long as he was her only
paramour; but, after her marriage with his father, the tone was changed. He confessed that she was tidy, notable, industrious; but, then, she
was a prostitute. When charged with being instrumental in making her
such, and when his companions dwelt upon the depravity of reviling her
for vices which she owed to him, 'True,' he would say, 'there is
depravity and folly in the conduct you describe. Make me out, if you
please, to be a villain. What then? I was talking, not of myself, but of
Betty. Still this woman is a prostitute. If it were I that made her
such, with more confidence may I make the charge. But think not that I
blame Betty. Place me in her situation, and I should have acted just so. I should have formed just such notions of my interest, and pursued it by
the same means. Still, say I, I would fain have a different woman for my
father's wife, and the mistress of his family.'" CHAPTER XXVI. This conversation was interrupted by a messenger from my wife, who
desired my return immediately. I had some hopes of meeting with Mervyn,
some days having now elapsed since his parting from us, and not being
conscious of any extraordinary motives for delay. It was Wortley,
however, and not Mervyn, to whom I was called. My friend came to share with me his suspicions and inquietudes
respecting Welbeck and Mervyn. An accident had newly happened which had
awakened these suspicions afresh. He desired a patient audience while he
explained them to me. These were his words:--

"To-day a person presented me a letter from a mercantile friend at
Baltimore. I easily discerned the bearer to be a sea-captain. He was a
man of sensible and pleasing aspect, and was recommended to my
friendship and counsel in the letter which he brought. The letter
stated, that a man, by name Amos Watson, by profession a mariner, and a
resident at Baltimore, had disappeared in the summer of last year, in a
mysterious and incomprehensible manner. He was known to have arrived in
this city from Jamaica, and to have intended an immediate journey to his
family, who lived at Baltimore; but he never arrived there, and no trace
of his existence has since been discovered. The bearer had come to
investigate, if possible, the secret of his fate, and I was earnestly
entreated to afford him all the assistance and advice in my power, in
the prosecution of his search. I expressed my willingness to serve the
stranger, whose name was Williams; and, after offering him entertainment
at my house, which was thankfully accepted, he proceeded to unfold to
me the particulars of this affair. His story was this. "'On the 20th of last June, I arrived,' said he, 'from the West Indies,
in company with Captain Watson. I commanded the ship in which he came as
a passenger, his own ship being taken and confiscated by the English. We
had long lived in habits of strict friendship, and I loved him for his
own sake, as well as because he had married my sister.