or, the sacrifice you would
make is unnecessary--uncalled for. You do not know my mother. She would
not, I grieve to say, appreciate the generosity of your motives. She
would not give you credit for your feelings. She would only resent your
visit as an intrusion."

"My daughter comprehends you, sir," said Mrs. Mowbray, haughtily. "I
will take care that, in her own house, Miss Mowbray shall remain free
from insult."

"Mother, dear mother," said Eleanor, "do not wilfully misunderstand
him."

"You can be little aware, madam," said Ranulph, calmly, yet sadly, "how
much I have recently endured--how much of parental anger--how much of
parental malediction I have incurred, to save you and your daughter from
the indignity you apprehend. As I before said, you do not know my
mother; nor could it enter into any well-regulated imagination to
conceive the extremities to which the violence of her passion will, when
her schemes are thwarted, hurry her. The terms upon which you met
together will not escape your recollection; nor shall I need to recall
to your mind her haughtiness, her coldness. That coldness has since
ripened into distrust; and the match which she was at first all anxiety
to promote, she would now utterly set aside, were it in her power to do
so. Whence this alteration in her views has arisen, I have no means of
ascertaining; it is not my mother's custom to give a reason for her
actions, or her wishes: it is all-sufficient to express them. I have
perceived, as the time has drawn nigh for the fulfilment of my dearest
hopes, that her unwillingness has increased; until to-day, what had
hitherto been confined to hints, has been openly expressed, and absolute
objections raised. Such, however, is the peculiarity of her temper, that
I trusted, even at the eleventh hour, I should be able to work a change.
Alas! our last meeting was decisive. She commanded me to break off the
match. At once, and peremptorily, I refused. Pardon me, madam, pardon
me, dearest Eleanor, if I thus enter into particulars; it is absolutely
necessary I should be explicit. Enraged at my opposition to her wishes,
her fury became ungovernable. With appalling imprecations upon the
memory of my poor father, and upon _your_ father, madam, whose chief
offence in her eyes was, it seems, the disposition of his property to
Eleanor, she bade me be gone, and take her curses as my wedding portion.
Beneath this roof--beneath _her_ roof, she added--no marriage of m