ns
for a twelvemonth or more, you have no right to dismiss him with no
further explanation than demurely telling him that you had always looked
coldly upon him; and neither your wealth nor your LADYSHIP' (there was
an emphasis of scorn on the word, which would have become Sir Giles
Overreach himself) 'can warrant you in treating with contempt the
affectionate regard of an honest heart.'

I was too much shocked at this undisguised attempt to bully me into
an acquiescence in the interested and unprincipled plan for their own
aggrandisement, which I now perceived my uncle and his son to have
deliberately entered into, at once to find strength or collectedness
to frame an answer to what he had said. At length I replied, with some
firmness:

'In all that you have just now said, sir, you have grossly misstated my
conduct and motives. Your information must have been most incorrect as
far as it regards my conduct towards my cousin; my manner towards him
could have conveyed nothing but dislike; and if anything could have
added to the strong aversion which I have long felt towards him, it
would be his attempting thus to trick and frighten me into a marriage
which he knows to be revolting to me, and which is sought by him only as
a means for securing to himself whatever property is mine.'

As I said this, I fixed my eyes upon those of my uncle, but he was too
old in the world's ways to falter beneath the gaze of more searching
eyes than mine; he simply said:

'Are you acquainted with the provisions of your father's will?'

I answered in the affirmative; and he continued:

'Then you must be aware that if my son Edward were--which God
forbid--the unprincipled, reckless man you pretend to think him'--(here
he spoke very slowly, as if he intended that every word which escaped
him should be registered in my memory, while at the same time the
expression of his countenance underwent a gradual but horrible change,
and the eyes which he fixed upon me became so darkly vivid, that
I almost lost sight of everything else)--'if he were what you have
described him, think you, girl, he could find no briefer means than
wedding contracts to gain his ends? 'twas but to gripe your slender neck
until the breath had stopped, and lands, and lakes, and all were his.'

I stood staring at him for many minutes after he had ceased to speak,
fascinated by the terrible serpent-like gaze, until he continued with a
welcome change of countenance:

'I wi