r, contrary to her own judgment, against me: these, he said, were
all so many flagrant proofs that they would stick at nothing to carry
their point; and were what made him inexpressibly uneasy.

He appealed to me, whether ever I knew my father recede from any
resolution he had once fixed; especially, if he thought either
his prerogative, or his authority concerned in the question. His
acquaintance with our family, he said, enabled him to give several
instances (but they would be too grating to me) of an arbitrariness
that had few examples even in the families of princes: an arbitrariness,
which the most excellent of women, my mother, too severely experienced.
He was proceeding, as I thought, with reflections of this sort; and I
angrily told him, I would not permit my father to be reflected upon;
adding, that his severity to me, however unmerited, was not a warrant
for me to dispense with my duty to him.

He had no pleasure, he said, in urging any thing that could be so
construed; for, however well warranted he was to make such reflections
from the provocations they were continually giving him, he knew how
offensive to me any liberties of this sort would be. And yet he must
own, that it was painful to him, who had youth and passions to be
allowed for, as well as others, and who had always valued himself under
speaking his mind, to curb himself, under such treatment. Nevertheless,
his consideration for me would make him confine himself, in his
observations, to facts that were too flagrant, and too openly avowed, to
be disputed. It could not therefore justly displease, he would venture
to say, if he made this natural inference from the premises, That
if such were my father's behaviour to a wife, who disputed not the
imaginary prerogatives he was so unprecedently fond of asserting, what
room had a daughter to hope, that he would depart from an
authority he was so earnest, and so much more concerned, to
maintain?--Family-interests at the same time engaging; an aversion,
however causelessly conceived, stimulating my brother's and sister's
resentments and selfish views cooperating; and my banishment from their
presence depriving me of all personal plea or entreaty in my own favour.

How unhappy, my dear, that there is but too much reason for these
observations, and for this inference; made, likewise, with more coolness
and respect to my family than one would have apprehended from a man
so much provoked, and of passions so hi