, to wish to marry one who had like to have
killed him, and who threatened your uncles, and defies us all. You have
had your own way six or seven times: we want to secure you against a man
so vile. Tell me (I have a right to know) whether you prefer this man
to all others?--Yet God forbid that I should know you do; for such
a declaration would make us all miserable. Yet tell me, are your
affections engaged to this man?

I knew not what the inference would be, if I said they were not.

You hesitate--You answer me not--You cannot answer me.--Rising--Never
more will I look upon you with an eye of favour--

O Madam, Madam! Kill me not with your displeasure--I would not, I need
not, hesitate one moment, did I not dread the inference, if I answer
you as you wish.--Yet be that inference what it will, your threatened
displeasure will make me speak. And I declare to you, that I know not my
own heart, if it not be absolutely free. And pray, let me ask my dearest
Mamma, in what has my conduct been faulty, that, like a giddy creature,
I must be forced to marry, to save me from--From what? Let me beseech
you, Madam, to be the guardian of my reputation! Let not your Clarissa
be precipitated into a state she wishes not to enter into with any man!
And this upon a supposition that otherwise she shall marry herself, and
disgrace her whole family.

Well then, Clary [passing over the force of my plea] if your heart be
free--

O my beloved Mamma, let the usual generosity of your dear heart operate
in my favour. Urge not upon me the inference that made me hesitate.

I won't be interrupted, Clary--You have seen in my behaviour to you,
on this occasion, a truly maternal tenderness; you have observed that
I have undertaken the task with some reluctance, because the man is not
every thing; and because I know you carry your notions of perfection in
a man too high--

Dearest Madam, this one time excuse me!--Is there then any danger that I
should be guilty of an imprudent thing for the man's sake you hint at?

Again interrupted!--Am I to be questioned, and argued with? You know
this won't do somewhere else. You know it won't. What reason then,
ungenerous girl, can you have for arguing with me thus, but because you
think from my indulgence to you, you may?

What can I say? What can I do? What must that cause be that will not
bear being argued upon?

Again! Clary Harlowe!

Dearest Madam, forgive me: it was always my pride and my pleasure