refused to enter into it when I found he would stay
any time.

My brother heard me out with such a kind of impatience as shewed he was
resolved to be dissatisfied with me, say what I would. The rest, as the
event has proved, behaved as if they would have been satisfied, had
they not further points to carry by intimidating me. All this made it
evident, as I mentioned above, that they themselves expected not my
voluntary compliance; and was a tacit confession of the disagreeableness
of the person they had to propose.

I was no sooner silent than my brother swore, although in my father's
presence, (swore, unchecked either by eye or countenance,) That for his
part, he would never be reconciled to that libertine: and that he would
renounce me for a sister, if I encouraged the addresses of a man so
obnoxious to them all.

A man who had like to have been my brother's murderer, my sister said,
with a face even bursting with restraint of passion.

The poor Bella has, you know, a plump high-fed face, if I may be allowed
the expression. You, I know, will forgive me for this liberty of speech
sooner than I can forgive myself: Yet how can one be such a reptile as
not to turn when trampled upon!

My father, with vehemence both of action and voice [my father has, you
know, a terrible voice when he is angry] told me that I had met with too
much indulgence in being allowed to refuse this gentleman, and the other
gentleman,; and it was now his turn to be obeyed!

Very true, my mother said:--and hoped his will would not now be disputed
by a child so favoured.

To shew they were all of a sentiment, my uncle Harlowe said, he hoped
his beloved niece only wanted to know her father's will, to obey it.

And my uncle Antony, in his rougher manner, added, that surely I would
not give them reason to apprehend, that I thought my grandfather's
favour to me had made me independent of them all.--If I did, he would
tell me, the will could be set aside, and should.

I was astonished, you must needs think.--Whose addresses now, thought I,
is this treatment preparative to?--Mr. Wyerley's again?--or whose? And
then, as high comparisons, where self is concerned, sooner than low,
come into young people's heads; be it for whom it will, this is wooing
as the English did for the heiress of Scotland in the time of Edward
the Sixth. But that it could be for Solmes, how should it enter into my
head?

I did not know, I said, that I had given occasion f