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Fiction

Notes him, however, and he stays for a beer with the two travelers, who give him their separate
opinions about a neighboring gentleman landowner: one considers the gentleman a cruel
tyrant and an arbitrary Justice of the Peace, and the other considers him reasonable and just.
Confused, Adams applies to the Host, who explains to him that the two travelers were opposing
parties in the only cause the Justice has decided recently; the Host then gives his opinion that
“neither of them spoke a Syllable of Truth.” Mr. Adams expresses to the cynical Host his
religious horror of lying.
A stage coach arrive carrying Mrs. Slipslop, who has paid for Adams’s horse during a stopover
at the inn. Joseph then arrives on the horse, and he and Mr. Adams settle between them that
the curate should continue the journey in the stage coach while Joseph continues on horseback.
In the carriage, Mr. Adams and Mrs. Slipslop discuss the recent developments in the Booby
family. Slipslop reports that Lady Booby has acted”like a Madwoman” since the departure of
Joseph, and when Mr. Adams expresses his regret over her decline, Slipslop suggests that he
knows less about the family than he thinks: Lady Booby, she says, was the stingy one, and Sir
Thomas would have been more generous to the poor in the parish if his wife had let him. Mr.
Adams remarks that Mrs. Slipslop once took the opposite view of the Boobys. Soon another
lady in the carriage informs her fellow passengers that “yonder lives the unfortunate Leonora”
and their entreaties soon induce her to relate the story of Leonora.

Chapter IV
Leonora was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman and the possessor of many superficial
charms. At eighteen, while she was living with an aunt in the north of England, she began a
flirtation with a sardonic young lawyer named Horatio. Horatio soon conceived “the most
violent Passion for Leonora” and proposed marriage to her, which proposal Leonora initially
resisted but ultimately accepted. The lovers then exchanged some letters and set the date for
the wedding. When the happy day was two weeks off, Horatio had to attend the sessions for
their county, leaving Leonora alone to gawk at a passing coach and six and exclaim, “O, I am
in love with that Equipage!” The owner of the coach and six, a Frenchified cavalier named
Bellarmine, admired Leonora conspicuously at that evening’s assembly. Leonora found herself
the happy target of every woman’s hatred: “She had before known what it was to torment a
single Woman; but to be hated and secretly cursed by a whole Assembly was a Joy reserved
for this blessed Moment.”

Did u know? Leonora danced the night away with Bellarmine, despite her earlier resolution
not to dance while Horatio was away.

The next day Bellarmine proposed to Leonora, who referred him to her father and then worried,
though briefly, that she had wronged Horatio. Her primary motive in changing fiancées was
financial: “How vast is the difference between being the Wife of a poor Counsellor, and the
Wife of one of Bellarmine’s Fortune!” She further rationalized the action by reasoning that if
Horatio mourned the loss of his beloved, “Bellarmine may be as miserable for me too.” The
next morning her Aunt advised her to accept Bellarmine, arguing that “there is not any thing
worth our Regard besides Money.” Leonora accepted this reasoning, and she and Bellarmine
settled it between them that he would seek her father’s consent soon. After supper the lovers
sat chatting about French and English clothing when Horatio appeared unexpectedly, triggering
“a long Silence.” Horatio finally broke the ice, whereupon Leonora played dumb about their
engagement. Staggered, Horatio exclaimed, “I am in a Dream; for it is impossible I should be
really esteemed a common Acquaintance by Leonora, after what has passed between us!”

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