ull sanction and approbation."

"I thought so," said Clara, in the same altered tone of voice in which
she had before spoken; "my mind foreboded this last of misfortunes!--But,
Mowbray, you have no child before you--I neither will nor can see this
nobleman."

"How!" exclaimed Mowbray, fiercely; "do you dare return me so peremptory
an answer?--Think better of it, for, if we differ, you will find you
will have the worst of the game."

"Rely upon it," she continued, with more vehemence, "I will see him nor
no man upon the footing you mention--my resolution is taken, and
threats and entreaties will prove equally unavailing."

"Upon my word, madam," said Mowbray, "you have, for a modest and retired
young lady, plucked up a goodly spirit of your own!--But you shall find
mine equals it. If you do not agree to see my friend Lord Etherington,
ay, and to receive him with the politeness due to the consideration I
entertain for him, by Heaven! Clara, I will no longer regard you as my
father's daughter. Think what you are giving up--the affection and
protection of a brother--and for what?--merely for an idle point of
etiquette.--You cannot, I suppose, even in the workings of your romantic
brain, imagine that the days of Clarissa Harlowe and Harriet Byron are
come back again, when women were married by main force? and it is
monstrous vanity in you to suppose that Lord Etherington, since he has
honoured you with any thoughts at all, will not be satisfied with a
proper and civil refusal--You are no such prize, methinks, that the days
of romance are to come back for you."

"I care not what days they are," said Clara--"I tell you I will not see
Lord Etherington, or any one else, upon such preliminaries as you have
stated--I cannot--I will not--and I ought not.--Had you meant me to
receive him, which can be a matter of no consequence whatever, you
should have left him on the footing of an ordinary visitor--as it is, I
will not see him."

"You _shall_ see and hear him both," said Mowbray; "you shall find me as
obstinate as you are--as willing to forget I am a brother, as you to
forget that you have one."

"It is time, then," replied Clara, "that this house, once our father's,
should no longer hold us both. I can provide for myself, and may God
bless you!"

"You take it coolly, madam," said her brother, walking through the
apartment with much anxiety both of look and gesture.

"I do," she answered, "for it is what I have often fo