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' 'Forbid,
the banns!' says his mother; 'who can that be?' 'Even Mrs.
Betty herself,' says Robin. 'How so?' says his mother. 'Have
you asked her the question, then?' 'Yes, indeed, madam,' says
Robin. 'I have attacked her in form five times since she was sick,
and am beaten off; the jade is so stout she won't capitulate nor
yield upon any terms, except such as I cannot effectually grant.'
'Explain yourself,' says the mother, 'for I am surprised; I do
not understand you. I hope you are not in earnest.'

'Why, madam,' says he, 'the case is plain enough upon me,
it explains itself; she won't have me, she says; is not that plain
enough? I think 'tis plain, and pretty rough too.' 'Well, but,'
says the mother, 'you talk of conditions that you cannot grant;
what does she want--a settlement? Her jointure ought to be
according to her portion; but what fortune does she bring you?'
'Nay, as to fortune,' says Robin, 'she is rich enough; I am
satisfied in that point; but 'tis I that am not able to come up
to her terms, and she is positive she will not have me without.'

Here the sisters put in. 'Madam,' says the second sister, ''tis
impossible to be serious with him; he will never give a direct
answer to anything; you had better let him alone, and talk no
more of it to him; you know how to dispose of her out of his
way if you thought there was anything in it.' Robin was a little
warmed with his sister's rudeness, but he was even with her,
and yet with good manners too. 'There are two sorts of people,
madam,' says he, turning to his mother, 'that there is no
contending with; that is, a wise body and a fool; 'tis a little
hard I should engage with both of them together.'

The younger sister then put in. 'We must be fools indeed,'
says she, 'in my brother's opinion, that he should think we can
believe he has seriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him, and
that she has refused him.'

'Answer, and answer not, say Solomon,' replied her brother.
'When your brother had said to your mother that he had asked
her no less than five times, and that it was so, that she positively
denied him, methinks a younger sister need not question the
truth of it when her mother did not.' 'My mother, you see,
did not understand it,' says the second sister. 'There's some
difference,' says Robin, 'between desiring me to explain it,
and telling me she did not believe it.'

'Well, but, son,' says the old lady, 'if you are disposed to let
us into the mystery of it, what were these hard conditions?'
'Yes, madam,' says Robin, 'I had done it before now, if the
teasers here had not worried my by way of interruption.

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