The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

This young gentleman had fired his inclination as much as he had my

vanity, and, as if he had found that he had an opportunity and was

sorry he did not take hold of it, he comes up again in half an hour or

thereabouts, and falls to work with me again as before, only with a

little less introduction.

And first, when he entered the room, he turned about and shut the door.

'Mrs. Betty,' said he, 'I fancied before somebody was coming upstairs,

but it was not so; however,' adds he, 'if they find me in the room with

you, they shan't catch me a-kissing of you.' I told him I did not know

who should be coming upstairs, for I believed there was nobody in the

house but the cook and the other maid, and they never came up those

stairs. 'Well, my dear,' says he, ''tis good to be sure, however'; and

so he sits down, and we began to talk. And now, though I was still all

on fire with his first visit, and said little, he did as it were put

words in my mouth, telling me how passionately he loved me, and that

though he could not mention such a thing till he came to this estate,

yet he was resolved to make me happy then, and himself too; that is to

say, to marry me, and abundance of such fine things, which I, poor

fool, did not understand the drift of, but acted as if there was no

such thing as any kind of love but that which tended to matrimony; and

if he had spoke of that, I had no room, as well as no power, to have

said no; but we were not come that length yet.

We had not sat long, but he got up, and, stopping my very breath with

kisses, threw me upon the bed again; but then being both well warmed,

he went farther with me than decency permits me to mention, nor had it

been in my power to have denied him at that moment, had he offered much

more than he did.

However, though he took these freedoms with me, it did not go to that

which they call the last favour, which, to do him justice, he did not

attempt; and he made that self-denial of his a plea for all his

freedoms with me upon other occasions after this. When this was over,

he stayed but a little while, but he put almost a handful of gold in my

hand, and left me, making a thousand protestations of his passion for

me, and of his loving me above all the women in the world.