was
reduced to begin the subject herself, and to tell him that Lady Emilia
had acquainted her with the honour he had done her, that she was much
obliged to him for his good opinion and hoped he would be happy with
some woman much more deserving than herself; but she could by no means
accept the favour he intended her, being so entirely happy in her
present situation that nothing in the world should induce her to change
it.

This declaration gave rise to a very warm contest, Lord Robert
soliciting her to accept his love with all the tenderness of the
strongest passion, and she with equal perseverance persisting in her
refusal. He could not be persuaded that her motive for doing so was
really what she alleged but as she continued to affirm it, he begged
however to know if she had not made so strange a resolution in favour of
a single life, whether she should have had any particular objection to
him?

Miss Selvyn shewed the uselessness of this question, since the reason of
her refusing the honour he intended her would have made her reject the
addresses of every other man in the world. Lord Robert could not believe
this possible and therefore desisted not from urging a question so
disagreeable to answer.

When Miss Selvyn found it impossible to avoid satisfying him in this
particular, she told him that if he were entirely unexceptionable, she
should be fixed in the same determination; but since he insisted on
knowing if she had any objection to him, she was obliged to confess
that had she been better inclined to enter into the matrimonial state,
his lordship was not the man she should have chosen, not from any
dislike to his person or understanding, but from disapprobation of his
principles; that, in regard to her sex he had a lightness in his way of
thinking and had been so criminal in his conduct that of all men she
knew, she thought him most improper for a husband.

Lord Robert was surprised at so new an objection, and told her, that he
did not apprehend himself more blamable in those respects than most
young men. Gallantry was suitable to his age, and he never imagined that
any woman would have reproached him with his regard for her sex, when he
gave so strong a proof of an inclination to leave them all for her.

'I am sorry,' replied Miss Selvyn, 'that your lordship thinks me mean
enough to take pleasure in such a triumph, or so vain as to imagine I
can reform a man of dissolute manners, the last thing I should