"You do your daughter injustice, Mrs. Clifford, and me no less, in
this opinion. But I do not seek to remind you of misunderstandings
and mistakes, the memory of which can do no good. My purpose now
is to renew the offer to you which I originally made to Mr. Clifford.
My attachment to your daughter remains unaltered, and I am happy
to say that fortune has favored me so far as to enable me to place
her in a situation of comparative comfort and independence which
I could not offer then--"
"Which is as much as to say that she don't enjoy comfort and
independence where she is; and if she does not, sir, to whom is it
all owing, sir, but to you and your father? By your means it is
that we are reduced to poverty; but you shall see, sir, that we
are not entirely wanting in independence. My answer, sir, is just
the same as Mr. Clifford's was. I am very much obliged to you for
THE HONOR you intend my family, but we must decline it. As for the
comfort and independence which you proffer to my daughter, I am
happy to inform you that she can receive it at any moment from a
source perhaps far more able than yourself to afford both, if her
perversity does not stand in the way, as it did when young Roberts
made his offers. Mr. Perkins, sir, the excellent young man that
you tried to murder, is to be here, sir, this very morning, to see
my daughter. Here's his letter, sir, which you may read, that you
may be under no apprehensions that my daughter will ever suffer
from a want of comfort and independence."
She flung a letter down on the sofa beside her, but I simply bowed,
and declined looking at it. I did not, however, yield the contest
in this manner. I urged all that might properly be urged on the
subject, and with as much earnestness as could be permitted in an
interview with a lady--and such a lady!--but, as the reader may
suppose, my toils were taken in vain: all that I could suggest,
either in the shape of reason or expostulation, only served to make
her more and more dogged, and to increase her tone of insolence;
and sore, stung with vexation, disappointed, and something more
than bewildered, I dashed almost headlong out of the house, without
seeing either Julia or her father, precisely at the moment when
Mr. Perkins was about to enter.