Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 12.djvu/310

was courted by an Irishman, who pretended to be barrack master general of Ireland, and desired me, as an old acquaintance of her mother Betty Jones, alias Perkins, to inquire about this Irishman. I answered, that I knew him not, but supposed he was a cheat; I heard no more. But now comes a letter to me from this Betty Jones, alias Perkins, to let me know, that her daughter Anne Giles, married an Irishman, one Giles, and was now come over to Ireland to pick up some debts due to her husband, which she could not get; that the young widow (for her husband Giles is dead) has a mind to settle in Ireland, and to desire I would lend her daughter Giles three guineas, which her mother will pay me when I draw upon her in England, and Mrs. Giles writes me a letter to that purpose. She intends to take a shop, and will borrow the money from Mrs. Brent, (whose name she has learned) and pay me as others do. I was at first determined to desire you would, from me, make her a present of five pounds, on account of her mother and grandmother, whom my mother used to call cousin. She has sent me an attested copy of her mother's will, which, as I told you, cost me six shillings and four pence. But I am in much doubt; for by her mother's letters, she is her heiress, and the grandmother left Betty Jones, alias Perkins, the mother of this woman in Dublin, all she had, as a separate maintenance from her husband (who proved a rogue) to the value of five hundred pounds. Now, I cannot conceive why she would let her only daughter and heiress come to Ireland, without giving her money to bear her charges here, and put her in some way. The woman's name is Anne Giles, she lodges, at one Mrs. Wilmot's, the first house in Molesworth

court,