: eye raised] Why, my dear!--I cannot but own--
But how, I wonder, could you think of Mr. Anthony Harlowe?

D. How, Madam, could I think of any body else?

M. How could you think of any body else?--[angry, and drawing back her
face]. But do you know the subject, Nancy?

D. You have told it, Madam, by your manner of breaking it to me. But,
indeed, I question not that he had two motives in his visits--both
equally agreeable to me; for all that family love me dearly.

M. No love lost, if so, between you and them. But this [rising] is
what I get--so like your papa!--I never could open my heart to him!

D. Dear Madam, excuse me. Be so good as to open your heart to me.--
I don't love the Harlowes--but pray excuse me.

M. You have put me quite out with your forward temper! [angrily sitting
down again.]

D. I will be all patience and attention. May I be allowed to read his
letter?

M. I wanted to advise with you upon it.--But you are such a strange
creature!--you are always for answering one before one speaks!

D. You'll be so good as to forgive me, Madam.--But I thought every body
(he among the rest) knew that you had always declared against a second
marriage.

M. And so I have. But then it was in the mind I was in. Things may
offer----

I stared.

M. Nay, don't be surprised!--I don't intend--I don't intend--

D. Not, perhaps, in the mind you are in, Madam.

M. Pert creature! [rising again]----We shall quarrel, I see!--There's
no----

D. Once more, dear Madam, I beg your excuse. I will attend in silence.
--Pray, Madam, sit down again--pray do [she sat down.]--May I see the
letter?

No; there are some things in it you won't like.--Your temper is known, I
find, to be unhappy. But nothing bad against you; intimations, on the
contrary, that you shall be the better for him, if you oblige him.

Not a living soul but the Harlowes, I said, thought me ill-tempered: and
I was contented that they should, who could do as they had done by the
most universally acknowledged sweetness in the world.

Here we broke out a little; but at last she read me some of the passages
in the letter. But not the most mightily ridiculous: yet I could hardly
keep my countenance neither, especially when she came to that passage
which mentions his sound health; and at which she stopped; she best knew
why--But soon resuming:

M. Well now, Nancy, tell me what you think of it.

D. Nay, pray, Mada