Amelia -- Volume 3

history loo

of Doctor Harrison; which, however inconsistent it may have hitherto appeared, when examined to the bottom will be found, I

eighbourhood, were much grosser and more to his disadvantage than the doctor was pleased to set them forth in his letter to the person accused. What sense he had of Booth's conduct was, howeve

merly a friend to Amelia, and still preserved the outward appearance of friendship, was the strongest. She introduced all with-"I am sorry to say it; and it is friendship whi

ortune, and some little perhaps to imprudence, the whole neighbourhood rung with several gross and scandalous li

. Indeed, it was the doctor, and no other, who had been at his lodgings that evening when Booth and Amelia were wa

e lord had presented the children, and which, from the answers given him by the poor igno

sband and wife to be the vainest, silliest, and most unjust people alive. It was, indeed, almost incredible that two rational beings s

asioned their comparing notes, the account which the doctor gave of what he had seen that evening so incensed the gentleman, to whom Booth was likewise a debtor, that he vowed he would take a writ out against him the next morning, and have his body alive or dead; and the d

utterly undone with their father, were intirely innocent; and as for Amelia herself, though he thought he had most convincing proofs of very blameable levity, yet h

wn to him. The doctor took his old servant into a coffee- house, where he received from him such an account of Booth and his family, that he desir

faction as to what he had heard of her husband's behaviour in the country; and assured him, upon her honour, that Booth could so well answer every complaint against his conduct, that she had no doubt but t

this, indeed, he was induced by the love he always had for that lady, by the good opinion he entertained of her, as well as by pity for her present condition, than which nothing appeared more miserable; for he found her in the highest agonies of grief and despair, with her two little children cr

succeeded, that he restored to Amelia sufficient spirits to give him the satisfaction we have mentioned: after wh