more to visit you, my dear; but sorely against my will;
because it is to impart to you matters of the utmost concern to you, and
to the whole family.

What, Madam, is now to be done with me? said I, wholly attentive.

You will not be hurried away to your uncle's, child; let that comfort
you.--They see your aversion to go.--You will not be obliged to go to
your uncle Antony's.

How you revive me, Madam! this is a cordial to my heart!

I little thought, my dear, what was to follow this supposed
condescension.

And then I ran over with blessings for this good news, (and she
permitted me so to do, by her silence); congratulating myself, that
I thought my father could not resolve to carry things to the last
extremity.--

Hold, Niece, said she, at last--you must not give yourself too much joy
upon the occasion neither.--Don't be surprised, my dear.--Why look you
upon me, child, with so affecting an earnestness?--but you must be Mrs.
Solmes, for all that.

I was dumb.

She then told me, that they had undoubted information, that a certain
desperate ruffian (I must excuse her that word, she said) had prepared
armed men to way-lay my brother and uncles, and seize me, and carry me
off.--Surely, she said, I was not consenting to a violence that might be
followed by murder on one side or the other; perhaps on both.

I was still silent.

That therefore my father (still more exasperated than before) had
changed his resolution as to my going to my uncle's; and was determined
next Tuesday to set out thither himself with my mother; and that (for
it was to no purpose to conceal a resolution so soon to be put into
execution)--I must not dispute it any longer--on Wednesday I must give
my hand--as they would have me.

She proceeded, that orders were already given for a license: that the
ceremony was to be performed in my own chamber, in presence of all my
friends, except of my father and mother; who would not return, nor see
me, till all was over, and till they had a good account of my behaviour.

The very intelligence, my dear!--the very intelligence this, which
Lovelace gave me!

I was still dumb--only sighing, as if my heart would break.

She went on, comforting me, as she thought. 'She laid before me the
merit of obedience; and told me, that if it were my desire that my
Norton should be present at the ceremony, it would be complied with:
that the pleasure I should receive from reconciling al my friends to me,
and in th