sons: and
in this I was wrong too, because a young creature who loves to reason,
and used to love to be convinced by reason, ought to have all her
objections heard: I now therefore, this third time, see you; and am
come resolved to hear all you have to say: and let me, my dear, by my
patience engage your gratitude; your generosity, I will call it, because
it is to you I speak, who used to have a mind wholly generous.--Let me,
if your heart be really free, let me see what it will induce you to do
to oblige me: and so as you permit your usual discretion to govern you,
I will hear all you have to say; but with this intimation, that say what
you will, it will be of no avail elsewhere.

What a dreadful saying is that! But could I engage your pity, Madam, it
would be somewhat.

You have as much of my pity as of my love. But what is person, Clary,
with one of your prudence, and your heart disengaged?

Should the eye be disgusted, when the heart is to be engaged?--O
Madam, who can think of marrying when the heart is shocked at the
first appearance, and where the disgust must be confirmed by every
conversation afterwards?

This, Clary, is owing to your prepossession. Let me not have cause
to regret that noble firmness of mind in so young a creature which I
thought your glory, and which was my boast in your character. In this
instance it would be obstinacy, and want of duty.--Have you not made
objections to several--

That was to their minds, to their principles, Madam.--But this man--

Is an honest man, Clary Harlowe. He has a good mind. He is a virtuous
man.

He an honest man? His a good mind, Madam? He a virtuous man?--

Nobody denies these qualities.

Can he be an honest man who offers terms that will rob all his own
relations of their just expectations?--Can his mind be good--

You, Clary Harlowe, for whose sake he offers so much, are the last
person who should make this observation.

Give me leave to say, Madam, that a person preferring happiness to
fortune, as I do; that want not even what I have, and can give up the
use of that, as an instance of duty--

No more, no more of your merits!--You know you will be a gainer by that
cheerful instance of your duty; not a loser. You know you have but
cast your bread upon the waters--so no more of that!--For it is not
understood as a merit by every body, I assure you; though I think it a
high one; and so did your father and uncles at the time--

At the time, Madam!-