man,
but by my consent, and I agree, upon that condition, to think no more of
you, you will acquiesce.

I was willing to try whether he had the regard to all of my previous
declarations, which he pretended to have to some of them.

He was struck all of a heap.

What say you, Mr. Lovelace? You know, all you mean is for my good.
Surely I am my own mistress: surely I need not ask your leave to make
what terms I please for myself, so long as I break none with you?

He hemm'd twice or thrice--Why, Madam--why, Madam, I cannot say--then
pausing--and rising from his seat with petulance; I see plainly enough,
said he, the reason why none of my proposals can be accepted: at last I
am to be a sacrifice to your reconciliation with your implacable family.

It has always been your respectful way, Mr. Lovelace, to treat my family
in this free manner. But pray, Sir, when you call others implacable, see
that you deserve not the same censure yourself.

He must needs say, there was no love lost between some of my family and
him; but he had not deserved of them what they had of him.

Yourself being judge, I suppose, Sir?

All the world, you yourself, Madam, being judge.

Then, Sir, let me tell you, had you been less upon your defiances,
they would not have been irritated so much against you. But nobody ever
heard, that avowed despite to the relations of a person was a proper
courtship, either to that person, or to her friends.

Well, Madam, all that I know is, that their malice against me is such,
that, if you determine to sacrifice me, you may be reconciled when you
please.

And all I know, Sir, is, that if I do give my father the power of a
negative, and he will be contented with that, it will be but my duty to
give it him; and if I preserve one to myself, I shall break through no
obligation to you.

Your duty to your capricious brother, not to your father, you mean,
Madam.

If the dispute lay between my brother and me at first, surely, Sir, a
father may choose which party he will take.

He may, Madam--but that exempts him not from blame for all that, if he
take the wrong--

Different people will judge differently, Mr. Lovelace, of the right and
the wrong. You judge as you please. Shall not others as they please? And
who has a right to controul a father's judgment in his own family, and
in relation to his own child?

I know, Madam, there is no arguing with you. But, nevertheless, I had
hoped to have made myself some