SUSAN GRAY. 69

“Why, perhaps, Sir,” I answered, looking
down upon the ground, for I was afraid of look-
ing so fine a gentleman in the face, “ she might
not be pleased, if she should happen to return
while you were in the cottage.”

‘Does she often go out, Susan?” asked he.

* Yes, Sir, very often,” I answered.

‘Will you, then, let me come and see you
some day, when you are sure that she will not
return?” said he.

I believe I looked very angry; for I felt very
angry, and I said, “Sir, you mistake me very
greatly, if you suppose that I refuse to do what
is wrong lest I should offend my mistress: no,
indeed, 1 do not fear her displeasure only, but
I fear the anger of God.”

The captain was silent for some minutes; at
last, he said, ‘Susan, I beg your pardon; I
was deceived in you; I believed you to be very
different to what I find you.”

He then said some very fine and flattering
things in compliment to my virtue and my
modesty; saying, how much virtue made young
women appear amiable.

I am sorry to say that I listened to these
things with so much pleasure, that I forgot, for
some time, to ask him again to deliver his mes-
sage: at last, when I reminded him that it was
late, and that it did not become me, in my
humble state, to enter into discourse with a
gentleman: ‘My pretty Susan,” he said, “al-
though you are in the low state of a servant, yet
there are many ladies who might be proud to
be like you; nor is there any lady whom I have