"
"Madam," answered Sophia, trembling, "what I have said you have
extorted from me. I do not remember to have ever mentioned the name of
Mr. Jones with approbation to any one before; nor should I now had I
not conceived he had your approbation. Whatever were my thoughts of
that poor, unhappy young man, I intended to have carried them with
me to my grave- to that grave where only now, I find, I am to seek
repose." Here she sunk down in her chair, drowned in her tears, and,
in all the moving silence of unutterable grief, presented a
spectacle which must have affected almost the hardest heart.
All this tender sorrow, however, raised no compassion in her aunt.
On the contrary, she now fell into the most violent rage.- "And I
would rather," she cried, in a most vehement voice, "follow you to
your grave, than I would see you disgrace yourself and your family by
such a match. O Heavens! could I have ever suspected that I should
live to hear a niece of mine declare a passion for such a fellow?
You are the first- yes, Miss Western, you are the first of your name
who ever entertained so grovelling a thought. A family so noted for
the prudence of its women"- here she ran on a full quarter of an
hour, till, having exhausted her breath rather than her rage, she
concluded with threatening to go immediately and acquaint her brother.
Sophia then threw herself at her feet, and laying hold of her hands,
begged her with tears to conceal what she had drawn from her; urging
the violence of her father's temper, and protesting that no
inclinations of hers should ever prevail with her to do anything which
might offend him.
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