I am poor, as the world goes now; have
but just enough to live modestly in this retreat, where life costs but
little. He is rich, and can give you a handsome seat near your sister's
mansion; and a house in London if you desire one; less splendid, doubtless,
than Fareham's palace on the Thames, but more befitting the habits and
manners of an English gentleman's wife. He can give you hounds and hawks,
your riding-horses, and your coach-and-six. What more, in God's name, can
any reasonable woman desire?"
"Only one thing, sir. To live my own life in peace, as my conscience and my
reason bid me. I cannot love Denzil Warner, though of late I have grown
to like and respect him as a friend and most intelligent companion. Your
persistence is fast changing friendship into dislike; and the very name of
the man would speedily become hateful to me."
"Oh, I have done!" retorted Sir John. "I am no tyrant. You must take your
own way, mistress. I can but lament that Providence gave me only two
daughters, and one of them an arrant fool."
He left her in a huff, and had it not been for an astonishing event, which
convulsed town and country, and suspended private interests and private
quarrels in the excitement of public affairs, she would have heard much
more of his discontent.
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