possible to avoid giving Sir Edward
any opportunity of renewing his addresses; but his vigilance found the
means of seeing her alone more than once, when he warmly urged the
partiality of her behaviour, representing how much more his happiness
was concerned in the success of a passion which possessed his whole
soul, than his grandmother's could be in disappointing it. She, he
observed, was actuated only by pride, he by the sincerest love that ever
took place in a human heart. In accepting his addresses Louisa could
only mortify Lady Lambton; in rejecting them, she must render him
miserable. Which, he asked, had the best title to her regard, the woman
who could ungenerously and injudiciously set a higher value on riches
and birth than on her very superior excellencies, or the man who would
gladly sacrifice fortune and every other enjoyment the world could
afford, to the possession of her; of her who alone could render life
desirable to him? By these, and many other arguments, and what was more
prevalent than all the arguments that could be deduced from reason, by
the tenderest intreaties that the most ardent passion could dictate, Sir
Edward endeavoured to persuade Louisa to consent to marry him, but all
proved unavailing. She sometimes thought what he said was just, but
aware of her partiality, she could not believe herself an unprejudiced
judge, and feared that she might mistake the sophistry of love for the
voice of reason. She was sure while honour, truth and gratitude pleaded
against inclination they must be in the right, though their
remonstrances were hushed into a whisper by the louder solicitations of
passion. Convinced that she could not be to blame while she acted in
contradiction to her secret choice, since the sincerity of her
intentions were thereby plainly, though painfully evinced, she persisted
in refusing to become Sir Edward's wife, and told him, that if he did
not discontinue his addresses, he would force her to leave the house,
and retire to any place that would afford her a quiet refuge from his
importunity.

A hint of this sort was sufficient to drive Sir Edward almost to
distraction, and Louisa dared not pursue the subject. When he found she
could not be induced to consent to an immediate marriage, he endeavoured
to obtain a promise of her hand after Lady Lambton's decease, though to
a man of his impatient and strong passions such a delay was worse than
death; but Miss Mancel told him, by such an