Why else should Melissa, who had not a
thousand pounds in the world, go into every quarter of the town to ask
her acquaintance whether they would advise her to take Tom Townly,
that made his addresses to her with an estate of five thousand a year?
'Tis very pleasant on this occasion to hear the lady propose her doubts,
and to see the pains she is at to get over them.
I must not here omit a practice that is in use among the vainer part of
our own sex, who will often ask a friend's advice, in relation to a
fortune whom they are never likely to come at. Will Honeycomb, who is
now on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and ask
me in his most serious look, whether I would advise him to marry my Lady
Betty Single, who, by the way, is one of the greatest fortunes about
town. I stared him full in the face upon so strange a question;
upon which he immediately gave me an inventory of her jewels and estate,
adding, that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such
consequence without my approbation. Finding he would have an answer,
I told him, if he could get the lady's consent, he had mine.
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