It has set all the busybodies at work to find out your real character and situation; and you cannot imagine what conjectures have already circulated at your expense.

One suspects you to be a Jesuit in disguise; another thinks you are an agent from the Pretender; a third believes you to be an upstart gamester, because nobody knows anything of your family or fortune; a fourth is of opinion that you are an Irish fortune-hunter." This last hypothesis touched me so nearly that, to conceal my confusion, I was fain to interrupt his detail, and damn the world for an envious meddling community, that would not suffer a gentleman to live without molestation.

He took no notice of this apostrophe, but went on.

"For my own part, I neither know nor desire to know who or what you are.

This I am certain of, that few people make a mystery of their origin or situation, who can boast of anything advantageous in either; and my own opinion of the matter is that you have raised yourself, by your industry, from nothing to the appearance you now maintain, and which you endeavour to support by some matrimonial scheme." Here he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon me and perceiving my face covered with blushes, told me, how he was confirmed in his opinion.