handkerchief covering
my face, and my bosom heaving ready to burst; What! no answer, my
dear?--Why so much silent grief? You know I have always loved you. You
know, that I have no interest in the affair. You would not permit Mr.
Solmes to acquaint you with some things which would have set your heart
against Mr. Lovelace. Shall I tell you some of the matters charged
against him?--shall I, my dear?

Still I answered only by my tears and sighs.

Well, child, you shall be told these things afterwards, when you will be
in a better state of mind to hear them; and then you will rejoice in the
escape you will have had. It will be some excuse, then, for you to plead
for your behaviour to Mr. Solmes, that you could not have believed Mr.
Lovelace had been so very vile a man.

My heart fluttered with impatience and anger at being so plainly talked
to as the wife of this man; but yet I then chose to be silent. If I had
spoken, it would have been with vehemence.

Strange, my dear, such silence!--Your concern is infinitely more on this
side the day, than it will be on the other.--But let me ask you, and do
not be displeased, Will you choose to see what generous stipulations
for you there are in the settlements?--You have knowledge beyond your
years--give the writings a perusal: do, my dear: they are engrossed, and
ready for signing, and have been for some time. Excuse me, my love--I
mean not to disorder you:--your father would oblige me to bring them up,
and to leave them with you. He commands you to read them. But to read
them, Niece--since they are engrossed, and were before you made them
absolutely hopeless.

And then, to my great terror, she drew some parchments form her
handkerchief, which she had kept, (unobserved by me,) under her apron;
and rising, put them in the opposite window. Had she produced a serpent,
I could not have been more frightened.

Oh! my dearest Aunt, turning away my face, and holding out my hands,
hide from my eyes those horrid parchments!--Let me conjure you to tell
me--by all the tenderness of near relationship, and upon your honour,
and by your love for me, say, Are they absolutely resolved, that, come
what will, I must be that man's?

My dear, you must have Mr. Solmes: indeed you must.

Indeed I never will!--This, as I have said over and over, is not
originally my father's will.--Indeed I never will--and that is all I
will say!

It is your father's will now, replied my aunt: and, considering h