The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) or a History of the Life of Mademoiselle de Beleau Known by the Name of the Lady Roxana

I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and, by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never intended it; so I shut my door-...

I was so pleased that I resolved to go with Amy the next day to see the lodgings, and to see the woman of the house, and see how I liked them; but if I was pleased with the gene...

I was not pleased with this part at all, for I had no mind to let him go neither, and yet I had no mind to give him such hold of me as he would have had; and thus I was in a kin...

"I'll tell you," says he, "very plainly what I mean;" and still he held me fast in his arms. "I intend from this time never to trouble myself with any more business, so I shall...

In the meantime Amy was next door to stark-mad about her; she durst not see her at my lodgings for her life; and she went days without number to Spitalfields, where she used to...

She, with very civil language, in her way, brought him into a very handsome parlour below stairs, and said she would go and see whether the person who lodged in her house owned...

His ignorance was a cordial to my soul, and I cursed them in my thoughts that should ever undeceive him; and as I saw him willing to have the story end there, as not worth being...

Amy, who thought she might, on many accounts, venture with more safety to be particular than I could, asked her gentleman how a particular man, who she saw there among the _gens...

However, I stood out a little longer still. I asked him how he could expect that I could come into a proposal of such consequence the very first time it was moved to me; and tha...

I cannot but take notice here, that notwithstanding there was a secret horror upon my mind, and I was ready to sink when I came close to her to salute her, yet it was a secret i...

Amy was greatly surprised at it; but as she saw there was no remedy, she made a jest of it, and so after that conversed openly, being still satisfied that neither of them could...

I paid £60 a year for my new apartments, for I took them by the year; but then they were handsome lodgings indeed, and very richly furnished. I kept my own servants to clean and...

After I had been here about three months, my maid Amy writes me word that she had received a letter from her friend, as she called him. That, by the way, was the prince's gentle...

The first part of his reformation was a storm upon me; for, about ten days after the princess's funeral, he sent a message to me by his gentleman, intimating, though in very civ...

I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, of six-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals of remorse, without any signs of repentance, or wi...

"How do you mean too late?" says the mistress. "What! have you been concerned in this affair, then? What! have you helped bring this family slur upon us?" "I hope you do not thi...

"I. You have married a wife here, made her a lady, and put her in expectation of being something else still when she comes abroad. Pray have you examined whether you are able to...

Within two years after my own father's death my husband's father also died, and, as I thought, left him a considerable addition to his estate, the whole trade of the brewhouse,...

But he put the occasion into my hands, for he came no more to me for two months; indeed I expected a fit of absence, for such I had had several times before, but not for above a...

Here we stopped for about an hour, and drank some wine, and my husband, whose chief study was how to please and divert me, caused me to alight out of the coach; which the gentle...

This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind was oppressed with the weight of my...

"Well," says the captain's wife, "about the Turkish dress; pray let us hear that." "Why," says she, "my lady sat in a fine little drawing-room, which opened into the great room,...

I spoke the latter part of these words with a small air of authority, that he might think me the less guilty; but, I believe, he only looked on what I had said as a piece of her...

However, it not a little pleased me to see him so concerned and anxious about me, but I stopped a little when he put the cordial to my mouth, and taking the glass in my hand, I...

My merchant, bred to business and used to converse among men of business, could hardly tell how to live without it; at least it appeared he should be like a fish out of water, u...

She flew out in a rage at that, and told my friend that if she did, a curse would follow her, and her children after her, and denounced such horrid things upon her as frighted t...

Be that as it would, I had five hundred guineas sent me the next morning, and the messenger was ordered to tell me that the persons who sent it desired a ball again at my lodgin...

As I knew he was to be hired, I resolved to be out of the way when he came to my husband; so about five o'clock I proposed to the Quaker to take a walk on the pier and see the s...

It was a pretty while before I heard from Amy again, and when I did, the letter was in much the same strain as the former, excepting that things were coming more to a crisis; fo...

I had now no poverty attending me; on the contrary, I was mistress of ten thousand pounds before the prince did anything for me. Had I been mistress of my resolution, had I been...

After I had been near a year and a half in his arms as above, or thereabouts, I proved with child. I did not take any notice of it to him till I was satisfied that I was not dec...

When I came to him, he had everything ready as I wanted, and as he had proposed. As to my money, he gave me first of all an accepted bill, payable at Rotterdam, for four thousan...

We heard no more of him for two days, but the third day he came again; then he told me, with the same kindness, that he had ordered me a supply of household goods for the furnis...

In March, 1724, was published the narrative in which Defoe came, perhaps even nearer than in _Moll Flanders_, to writing what we to-day call a novel, namely: _The Fortunate Mist...

"I will say no more," says Amy, "but if I could have found her, after thy friend the Quaker had discharged her out of the Marshalsea prison, I had laid a scheme to have her take...

I immediately removed from the lodgings, and left them to bury the body when they thought proper, and retired to a lodging at a private gentleman's house, about a mile from The...