"
This sentence was no sooner pronounced, than the counterfeit lady
screamed, and ran into the ante-chamber, exclaiming, "Christ have
mercy upon us! Sure he is the devil incarnate!" Her mistress, who
followed her with great consternation, insisted upon knowing the
transaction to which the response alluded; and Mrs. Abigail, after
some recollection, gave her to understand that she had an admirer,
who, on that very hour and day mentioned by the cunning man, had
addressed himself to her in a serious proposal of marriage. This
explanation, however, was more ingenious than candid, for the admirer
was no other than the identical Mr. Pickle himself, who was a mere
dragon among the chambermaids, and, in his previous information
communicated to his associate, had given an account of this assignation,
with which he had been favoured by the damsel in question.
Our hero seeing his company very much affected with the circumstance
of the wizard's art, which had almost frightened both mistress
and maid into hysteric fits, pretended to laugh them out of their
fears, by observing, that there was nothing extraordinary in this
instance of his knowledge, which might have been acquired by some of
those secret emissaries whom such impostors are obliged to employ
for intelligence, or imparted by the lover himself, who had, perhaps,
come to consult him about the success of his amour.
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