'pray, what do you mean? What! Am I, that brought you so handsome a fortune, to be under the curb of my son, and ask him for every penny I want? No, sir', said I, 'I will not accept it. I expect to be left in full possession of one-half of your fortune, that I may live the remainder of my life like your wife.' 'Madam', replied my lord, 'you may expect what you please. If you can make it appear since I found you out to be a jilt that I have looked upon you as my wife, everything shall be altered and settled just as you desire, which might then be called your will; but, as the case now stands, the will is mine, and so it shall remain.'
I thought I should have sunk when I had heard him make this solemn and premeditated declaration. I raved like a mad woman, and, at the end of my discourse, told him that I did not value what could happen to me, even if I was forced to beg my bread, for I would stand the test of my own character; and, as I could get nothing by being an honest woman, so I should not scruple to declare that 'the son you have left what you have to is a bastard you had by me several years before we were married.'
'Oh', says he, 'madam, do you think you can frighten me? No, not in the least; for if you ever mention anything of it, the title, as well as all the estate, will go to another branch of my family, and you will then be left to starve in good earnest, without having the least glimpse of hope to better your fortune; for', added he, 'it is not very probable that you will be courted for a wife by any man of substance at these years; so if you have a mind to make yourself easy in your present circumstances, you must rest contented with what I have left you, and not prove yourself a whore to ruin your child, in whose power it will be to provide for you in a handsome manner, provided you behave yourself with that respect to him and me as you ought to do; for if any words arise about what I have done, I shall make a fresh will, and, as the laws of this nation will give me liberty, cut you off with a shilling.'
My own unhappiness, and his strong and lasting resentment, had kept me at high words, and flowing in tears, for some time; and, as I was unwilling anybody should see me in that unhappy condition, I stayed coolly talking to him, till our son, who had been to several gentlemen's houses about my lord's business, came home to tell his father the success he had met with abroad. He brought in with him bank-notes to the amount of £12,000, which he had received of some merchants he held a correspondence with; at which my lord was well pleased, for he was pretty near out of money at this juncture. After our son had delivered the accounts and bills, and had withdrawn, I asked my lord, in a calm tone, to give me the satisfaction of knowing in what manner the losses he had complained to have suffered consisted. 'You must consider, my lord', said I, 'that according to what you have been pleased to inform me of, we are upwards of £2000 per annum, besides about £17,000 ready money, poorer than we were when we first came to settle in Holland.'
'You talk', replied my lord, 'in a very odd manner. Do not you know that I had children of my own by a former wife? and of these I have taken so much care as to provide with very handsome fortunes, which are settled irrevocably upon them. I have, Providence be thanked, given each of them £5000, and that is laid in East India stock, sufficient to keep them genteelly, above the frowns of fortune, and free from the fear of want. This, joined to the money I mentioned to you before, as losses at sea, deaths, and bankruptcies, your children's fortunes, which are larger
