'How so? I don't at all see that. Have you not an obligation to that linen draper, and hosier, and I don't know who, there, upon your chimney-piece, if you take their things, and don't pay for them?'
Yet more struck with the sense of unbiassed equity manifested by this question, than by the simplicity shewn by that which had preceded it, Ellis felt her face suffused with shame, as she replied, 'I blush to have incurred such a reprimand; but I hope to convince you, by the exertions which I shall not a moment delay making, how little it is my intention to practise any such injustice; and how wide it would be from my approbation.'
She sat down, sensibly affected by the necessity of uttering this vindication.
'Well, then,' said he, without observing her distress, 'won't it be more honest to run in debt with an old bachelor, who has nobody but himself to take care of, than with a set of poor people who, perhaps, have got their houses full of children?'
The word honest, and the impossibility of disproving a charge of injuring those by whom she had been served, so powerfully shocked her feelings in arraigning her principles, that she could frame no answer.
Conceiving her silence to be assent, he returned to the chimney-piece, and, taking the little packet of bills, prepared to put it into his pocket-book; but, hastily, then, rising, she entreated him to restore it without delay.
Her manner was so earnest that he did not dare contest her will, though he looked nearly as angry as he was sorry. 'I meant,' he said, 'to have given you the greatest pleasure in the world; that was what I meant. I thought your debts made you so unhappy, that you would love me all your life for getting them off your hands. I loved a person so myself, who paid for some tops for me, when I was a boy, that I had bought for some of my playmates; without recollecting that I had no money to pay for them. However, I beg your pardon for my blunder, if you like your debts better.'
He now bowed to her, with an air of concern, and, wishing her health and happiness, retreated; but left her door wide open; and she heard him say to the milliners, 'My dears, I've made a great mistake: I wanted to set that pretty lady's heart at rest, by paying her bills; but she says she had rather owe them; though she did not mention her reason. So I hope the poor people are in no great hurry. However, whether they be or not, don't let them torment her for the money, for she says she has none. So 'twould only be plaguing her for nothing. And I should be sorry for her, for she looks as if she were very smart, besides being so pretty.'