While thus I remained in this family various suspicions arose in the minds of some concerning me with respect to Mary Penington’s fair daughter Guli; for she having now arrived at a marriageable age, and being in all respects a very desirable woman—whether regard was had to her outward person, which wanted nothing to render her completely comely; or to the endowments of her mind, which were every way extraordinary and highly obliging; or to her outward fortune, which was fair, and which with some hath not the last nor the least place in consideration—she was openly and secretly sought and solicited by many, and some of them almost of every rank and condition, good and bad, rich and poor, friend and foe. To whom, in their respective turns, till he at length came for whom she was reserved, she carried herself with so much evenness of temper, such courteous freedom, guarded with the strictest modesty, that as it gave encouragement or ground of hopes to none, so neither did it administer any matter of offence or just cause of complaint to any.
But such as were thus either engaged for themselves or desirous to make themselves advocates for others, could not, I observed, but look upon me with an eye of jealousy and fear, that I would improve the opportunities I had by frequent and familiar conversation with her, to my own advantage, in working myself into her good opinion and favour, to the ruin of their pretences.
According therefore to the several kinds and degrees of their fears of me, they suggested to her parents their ill surmises against me.
Some stuck not to question the sincerity of my intentions in coming at first among the Quakers, urging with a why may it not be so, that the desire and hopes of obtaining by that means so fair a fortune might be the prime and chief inducement to me to thrust myself amongst that people? But this surmise could find no place with those worthy friends of mine, her father-in-law and her mother, who, besides the clear sense and sound judgment they had in themselves, knew very well upon what terms I came among them, how strait and hard the passage was to me, how contrary to all worldly interest, which lay fair another way, how much I had suffered from my father for it, and how regardless I had been of attempting or seeking anything of that nature in these three or four years that I had been amongst them.