Kitabı oku: «The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5)», sayfa 5

CHAPTER LXVI

Upon quitting the drawing-room, to mount to her chamber, Juliet caught a glance of Ireton, ascending the staircase to the second story.

Apprehensive that he was watching for an opportunity to again torment her, she turned into a small apartment called the Print Closet, of which the door was open; purposing there to wait till he should have passed on.

There, however, she had no sooner entered, than, examining the beautiful engravings of Sir Robert Strange, she perceived Harleigh.

Eagerly and with delight he advanced, and sought, once more, to take her hand. A look of solemnity repressed him; but 'twas a solemnity mixt with sorrow, not anger.

'Generous Mr Harleigh!' she faintly articulated, while endeavouring to disperse the tears that again strove to find their way down her cheeks; 'can you then, thus unabatedly preserve your good opinion of an unknown Wanderer, … who seems the sport of insult and misfortune?'

Almost dissolved with tender feelings at this question, Harleigh, gently overpowering her opposition, irresistibly seized her hand, repeating, 'My good opinion? my reverence, rather! – my veneration is yours! – and a confidence in your worth that has no limits!'

Ashamed of the situation into which a sudden impulse of gratitude had involuntarily betrayed her, the varying hues of her now white, now crimson cheeks manifested alternate distress and confusion; while she struggled incessantly to disengage her hand; but the happy heart of Harleigh felt so delightedly its possession, that she struggled in vain.

'Yet, let not that confidence,' he continued, 'be always the offspring of fascination! Give it, at length, some other food than conjecture! not to remove doubts; I have none! but to solve difficulties that rob me of rest. – '

'I am sorry, Sir, very sorry, if I cause you any uneasiness,' said Juliet, resuming her usual calmness of manner; yet with bent down eyes, that neither ventured to meet his, nor to cast a glance at the hand which she still fruitlessly strove to withdraw; 'but indeed you must not detain me; – no, not a minute!'

Enchanted by the mildness of this remonstrance, little as its injunction met his wishes; 'Half a minute, then!' he gaily replied, 'accord me only half a minute, and I will try to be contented. Suffer me but to ask, – '

'No, Sir, you must ask me nothing! There is no question whatever I can answer! – '

'I will not make one, then! I will only offer an observation. There is a something – I know not what; nor can I divine; but something there is strange, singular, – very unusual, and very striking, between you and Lord Melbury! Pardon, pardon my abruptness! You allow me no time to be scrupulous. You promise him your confidence, – that confidence so long, so fervently solicited by another! – so inexorably withheld! – '

'I earnestly desire,' cried Juliet, recovering her look of openness, and raising her eyes; 'the sanction of Lord Melbury to the countenance and kindness of Lady Aurora.'

'Thanks! thanks!' cried Harleigh; who in this short, but expressive explanation, flattered himself that some concern was included for his peace; ''Tis to that, then, that cause, – a cause the most lovely, – he owes this envied pre-eminence? – And yet, – pardon me! – while apparently only a mediator – may not such a charge, – such an intercourse, – so intimate and so interesting a commission, – may it not, – nay, must it not inevitably make him from an agent become a principal? – Will not his heart pay the tribute – '

'Heaven forbid!' interrupting him, cried Juliet.

'Thanks! thanks, again! You do not, then, wish it? You are generous, noble enough not to wish it? And frank, sweet, ingenuous enough to acknowledge that you do not wish it? Ah! tell me but – '

'Mr Harleigh,' again interrupting him, cried Juliet, 'I know not what you are saying! – I fear I have been misunderstood. – You must let me be gone!' —

'No!' answered he, passionately; 'I can live no longer, breathe no longer, in this merciless solicitude of uncertainty and obscurity! You must give me some glimmering of light, some opening to comprehension, – or content yourself to be my captive! – '

'You terrify me, Mr Harleigh! Let me go! – instantly! instantly! – Would you make me hate – ' She had begun with a precipitance nearly vehement; but stopt abruptly.

'Hate me?' cried Harleigh, with a look appalled: 'Good Heaven!'

'Hate you? – No, – not you!.. I did not say you! – '

'Who, then? who then, should I make you hate? – Lord Melbury? – '

'O no, never! – 'tis impossible! – Let me be gone! – let me be gone! – '

'Not till you tell me whom I should make you hate! I cannot part with you in this new ignorance! Clear, at least, this one little point Whom should I make hate you? – '

'Myself, Sir, myself!' cried she, trembling and struggling. 'If you persist in thus punishing my not having fled from you, at once, as I would have fled from an enemy!'

He immediately let go her hand; but, finding that, though her look was instantly appeased, nay grateful, she was hastily retreating, he glided between her and the door, crying, 'Where, – at least deign to tell me! – Where may I see, – may I speak to you again?'

'Any where, any where!' – replied she, with quickness; but presently, with a sudden check of vivacity, added, 'No where, I mean! – no where, Sir, no where!' —

'Is this possible!' exclaimed he. 'Can you, – even in your wishes, – can you be so hard of heart?' —

'It is you,' said she reproachfully, 'who are hard of heart, to detain me thus! – Think but where I am! – where you are! – This house – Miss Joddrel – What may not be the consequence? – Is it Mr Harleigh who would deliver me over to calumny?'

Harleigh now held open the door for her himself, without venturing to reply, as he heard footsteps upon the stairs; but he permitted his lips to touch her arm, for he could not again seize her hand, as she passed him, eagerly, and with her face averted. She fled on to the stairs, and rapidly ascended them. Harleigh durst now follow; but he pursued her with his eyes. He could not, however, catch a glance, could not even view her profile, so sedulously her head was turned another way. Disappointment and mortification were again seizing him; till he considered, that that countenance thus hidden, had she been wholly unfearful of shewing some little emotion, had probably, nay, even purposely, been displayed.

Fleetly gaining her room, and dropping upon a chair, 'I must fly! – I must fly!' she exclaimed. 'Danger, here, attacks me in every quarter, – assails me in every shape! I must fly! – I must fly!'

This project, which had its origin in her terrour of Elinor, was now confirmed by the most profound, however troubled meditation. To difficulties of discussion which she deemed insurmountable with Harleigh; to claims of a confidence which she now considered to be deeply dangerous with Lord Melbury; and to indignities daily, nay, hourly, more insufferable from Mrs Ireton, were joined, at this moment, the horrour of another interview with Lord Denmeath, still more repugnant to her thoughts, and formidable to her fears.

She refused to descend to the evening-summons of Mrs Ireton; determining to avoid all further offences from that lady, to whom she had already announced her intended departure; yet she sighed, she even wept at quitting with the same unexplained abruptness Lord Melbury and Harleigh; and the cruel disappointment, mingled with strange surmizes, of the ingenuous Lord Melbury; the nameless consternation, blended with resentful suspence, of the impassioned Harleigh; presented scenes of distress and confusion to her imagination, that occupied her thoughts the whole night, with varying schemes and incessant regret.

When the glimmering of light shewed her that she must soon be gone, she mounted to a garret, which she knew to be inhabited by a young house-maid, whom she called up; and prevailed upon to go forth, and seek a boy who would carry a parcel to a distant part of the town.

Having thus gotten the street-door open, she guided the boy herself to the inn; where she arrived in time to save her place; and whence she set off for London.

CHAPTER LXVII

Escape and immediate safety thus secured, her tender friendship for Gabriella superseding all fear, and leaving behind all solicitude, made Juliet nearly pronounce aloud, what internally she repeated without intermission, 'I come to you, then, at last, my beloved Gabriella!' Cheerful, therefore, was her heart, in defiance of her various distresses: she was quitting Mrs Ireton, to join Gabriella! – What could be the circumstances that could make such a change severe to Juliet? Juliet, who felt ill treatment more terribly than misfortune; and to whom kindness was more essential than prosperity?

Her journey was free from accident, and void of event. Absorbed in her own ruminations, she listened not to what was said, and scarcely saw by whom she was surrounded; though her fellow-travellers surveyed her with curiosity, and, from time to time, assailed her with questions.

Arrived at London, she put herself into a hackney-coach; and, almost before her fluttered spirits suffered her to perceive that she had left the inn-yard, she found herself in a haberdasher's shop, in Frith Street, Soho; and in the arms of her Gabriella.

It was long ere either of them could speak; their swelling hearts denied all verbal utterance to their big emotions; though tears of poignant grief at the numerous woes by which they had been separated, were mingled with feelings of the softest felicity at their re-union.

Yet vaguely only Juliet gave the history of her recent difficulties; the history which had preceded them, and upon which hung the mystery of her situation, still remained unrevealed.

Gabriella forbore any investigation, but her look shewed disappointment. Juliet perceived it, and changed colour. Tears gushed into her eyes, and her head dropt upon the neck of her friend. 'Oh my Gabriella!' she cried, 'if my silence wounds, or offends you, – it is at an end!'

Gabriella, instantly repressing every symptom of impatience, warmly protested that she would await, without a murmur, the moment of communication; well satisfied that it could be withheld from motives only that would render its anticipation dangerous, if not censurable.

With grateful tears, and tenderest embraces, Juliet expressed her thanks for this acquiescence.

Of Gabriella, the history was brief and gloomy. She had entered into business with as little comprehension of its attributes, as taste for its pursuit; her mind, therefore, bore no part in its details, though she sacrificed to them the whole of her time. Of her son alone she could speak or think. From her husband she reaped little consolation. Married before the Revolution, from a convent, and while yet a child; according to the general custom of her country, which rarely permits any choice even to the man; and to the female allows not even a negative; chance had not, as sometimes is kindly the case, played the part of election, in assorting the new married couple. Gabriella was generous, noble, and dignified: exalted in her opinions, and full of sensibility: Mr – was many years older than herself, haughty and austere, though brave and honourable; but so cold in his nature, that he was neither struck with her virtues nor her graces, save in considering them as appendages to their mutual rank; nor much moved even by the death of his little son, but from repining that he had lost the heir to his illustrious name. He was now set off, incognito, to an appointed meeting with a part of his family, upon the continent.

Again a new scene of life opened to Juliet. The petty frauds, the over-reaching tricks, the plausible address, of the craft shop-keeper in retail, she had already witnessed: but the difficulties of honest trade she had neither seen nor imagined. The utter inexperience of Gabriella, joined to the delicacy of her probity, made her not more frequently the dupe of the artifices of those with whom she had to deal, than the victim of her own scruples. New to the mighty difference between buying and selling; to the necessity of having at hand more stores than may probably be wanted, for avoiding the risk of losing customers from having fewer; and to the usage of rating at an imaginary value whatever is in vogue, in order to repair the losses incurred from the failure of obtaining the intrinsic worth of what is old-fashioned or faulty; – new to all this, the wary shop-keeper's code, she was perpetually mistaken, or duped, through ignorance of ignorance, which leads to hazards, unsuspected to be hazards.

Repairs for the little shop were continually wanted, yet always unforeseen; taxes were claimed when she was least prepared to discharge them; and stores of merchandize accidentally injured, were obliged to be sold under prime cost, if not to be utterly thrown away.

Unpractised in every species of business, she had no criterion whence to calculate its chances, or be aware of its changes, either from varying seasons or varying modes; and to all her other intricacies, there was added a perpetual horrour of bankruptcy, from the difficulty of accelerating payment for what she sold, or of procrastinating it for what she bought.

Every embarrassment, however, at this period, was accommodated by Juliet; who had the exquisite satisfaction not only to bring to her beloved friend personal consolation, but solid and effectual comfort. The purse of Lord Melbury, which Juliet would only consider as the loan of Lady Aurora, was but little lightened by the small expences of the short journey from Brighthelmstone; and all that remained of its contents were instantly assigned to relieving the most painful of the distresses of Gabriella, those in which others were involved through her means.

Gabriella, with a grace familiar, if not peculiar, to her nation, of sharing, without the confusion of false pride, the offerings of tender friendship, or generous sympathy, accepted with noble frankness the assistance thus proposed; though Juliet again was obliged to hide her face from the enquiring eye, that seemed strangely to wonder whence this resource arose, and why its spring was concealed.

Juliet now became a partner in all the occupations and cares of her friend: together they prepared the shop for their customers every morning, and decked it out to attract passers bye; together they examined and re-arranged their goods every night; cast up their accounts, deposited sums for their creditors, and entered claims into their books for their debtors: together they sat in the shop, where one served and waited upon customers, and the other aided the household economy by the industry of her needle. Yet, laborious as might seem this existence to those who had known 'other times,' Juliet, by the side of Gabriella, thought every employment delightful; Gabriella, in the society of Juliet, felt every exertion lightened, and every sorrow softened.

CHAPTER LXVIII

Thus, in manual toil, yet mental comfort, had passed a week, when one morning, while the usual commissioner for carrying about goods happened to be out of the way, a lady from Soho Square sent, in great haste, an order for some ribbons. Juliet, to save a customer to her friend, proposed supplying the commissioner's place; and set forth for that purpose, with a little band-box in her hands, and a large black bonnet drawn over her eyes. But before she reached the square, she overtook two men who were loitering on, as leisurely as she was tripping diligently, and the words, 'You'll never know her again, I promise you; she's turned out quite a beauty!' struck her ears, from a voice which she recollected to be that of Mr Riley.

Anxious to avoid being recognized by him, she crossed to the other side of the street, with a precipitance that caused the cover of her band-box, which she had neglected to fasten, to slip aside, and most of her stores to roll in the dust.

While, with great dismay, she sought to recover them, a feeble, but eager voice, from a carriage, which suddenly stopt, ordered a footman to descend and assist the young lady.

Not without confusion, Juliet perceived to whom she owed so uncommon a civility; it was to her old friend and admirer Sir Jaspar Herrington. She collected her merchandize, courtsied her thanks, but looked another way, and hurried back to her new home.

She related her adventure to Gabriella, with whom she bemoaned the mischief that had befallen the ribbons; and who now determined to spare her friend any further hazard of unwelcome encounters, by carrying herself what yet remained unsoiled of the pieces, to Soho Square.

Juliet had barely time to install herself as mistress of the small warehouse, when she saw, through the window, the carriage of Sir Jaspar; at the same time, that a young woman opened the shop-door, and demanded a drachm of black sewing silk, and a yard of tape.

While Juliet with difficulty found, and with embarrassment prepared to weigh the first, and to measure the second, the Baronet, with a curious, but respectful air, entering, and hobbling towards the counter, desired to look at some ribbons.

Juliet, however vexed, could not refrain from smiling; but, through confusion, joined to the novelty of her office, she doubled the weight of her silk, and the measure of her tape, yet forgot to ask to be paid for either; and her customer, whether from similar forgetfulness, or from reluctance to mark the new shop-keeper's ignorance of business, walked off without seeming to notice this inattention.

Sir Jaspar, then, gravely repeated his request to be shewn some ribbons.

Juliet began now to hope that she had not been recollected by the Baronet. Shading her face, therefore, still lower with her large bonnet, she produced a drawer of black ribbons; concluding that what he required must be for his queue, or for his shoe-strings.

No, he said, black would not do: the colour that he wanted was brown.

In a low voice that strove to disguise itself, she answered that she had no other colour at home.

He would stay till some other were returned, then, he said; and, composedly seating himself, and taking out his snuff-box, he added, that he did not want plain brown ribbons, but ribbons speckled, spotted, or splashed with brown.

Juliet who could now no longer doubt being known to him, made no reply; though again, irresistibly, she smiled.

To the Baronet her smile was always enchantment; setting aside, therefore, any further pretence to strangeness, he leant his hands upon the counter, and peering archly under her bonnet, said, ''Tis you, indeed, then, sweet sorceress? And what sylph is it, – or what imp? – dulcet, or malignant! – that has drawn me again into the witchery of your charms?'

He then poured forth countless enquiries into her situation, her projects, and her sentiments; but, all proving fruitless, he pathetically lamented the luckless meeting; and frankly owned, that he had brought himself to a resolution of seeing her no more. 'The rude assault,' said he, 'made upon my feelings by those mundane harpies at Arundelcastle, removed a bandage from "my mind's eye" that had veiled me to myself, and shewed me that I was an old fool caught in the delusions of love and beauty! I could parry no raillery, I could brave no suspicion, I could retort no sneer! Panic-struck and disordered, I stole away, like a gentle Philander of Arcadia, my head drooping upon my left shoulder, my eyes cast down upon the ground, with every love-born symptom, – except youth, which alone offers their apology! I spent the rest of the day in character with this opening; mute with my servants; loquacious in soliloquy; quarrelling with my books; and neglecting my dinner! Sleepless and sighing, I repaired to my solitary couch; lost to every idea of existence, but what pointed out to me how, when, and where I might again behold my lovely enchantress. Shall I tell you how it was I recovered, at last, my senses?'

'If you think the lesson may be useful to me, Sir Jaspar! – '

'Ah, cruel! "He jests at scars who never felt a wound". Mark, however, the visions by which I have been tutored. The servants gone, the lights removed, and the world's bustle superseded by stillness, darkness, and solitude, – then, when my fancy meant to revel in smiles, dimples, sweet looks, and recreative wiles, then, – what a transformation from hope and enjoyment, to shame and derision! I no sooner closed my poor eyes, than an hundred little imps of darkness scrambled up my pillow. How was I tweaked, jirked, and jolted! Mumbled, jumbled, and pinched! Some of them encircled my eye-balls, holding mirrours in each hand. They spoke not; the mirrours were all eloquent! You think, they expressed, of a young girl? Behold here what a young girl must think of you! Others jammed my lean, lank arms into a machine of whale-bone, to strength and invigorate them for offering support, in cases of difficulty or danger, to my fair one: others fastened elastic strings to my withered neck and shoulders, to enable me, by little pulleys, to raise my head, after every obsequious reverence to my goddess. Crowds of the nimblest footed dived their little forked fingers into my heart, plucking up by the root sober contentment and propriety; and pummelling into their places restlessness, jealousy, and suspicion: mocking me when they had done, by peeping into my ears, and squeaking out, with merry tittering, See! see! see! what sickly rubbish the old dotard has got in his crazy noddle!'

Juliet again smiled, but so faintly, from uncertainty to what this fantastic gallantry might tend, that Sir Jaspar, looking at her with concern, said,

'How's this, my dainty Ariel? Why so serious a brow? Have some of my nocturnal visitants whisked themselves through the key-hole of your chamber-door, also? And have they tormented your fancy with waking visions of fearful omens? Spurn them all! sweet syren! What can the tricks and malice of hobgoblins, or even the freaks and vagaries of fortune itself, enact against youth, beauty, and health such as yours? Give me but such arms, and I will brave the wayward sisters themselves.'

More seriously, then, 'Alas!' he cried, 'what is it, thus mystic, yet thus attractive, that allures me whether I will or not into your chains? – Could I but tell who, or what you are, – besides being an angel, – it is possible there might occur some idea, – some – some little notion of means to exorcise the wicked familiars that severally annoy us. Tell me but under what semblance the pigmy enemies invade you? Whether, as usual, with the darts of Master Cupid, shot, furiously, into your snowy bosom, or – '

'No, no, no!'

'Or whether by the bags of Plutus, emptied, furtively, from your strong box? In the first case, – little as my bosom is snowy! – I should but too well know how to pity; in the second, I should be proud and honoured to serve you. Tell me, then, who you are, resistless paragon! and you shall wander no more in the nameless state, an exquisite, but nearly visionary being! Tell me but who you are, and I will protect you, myself, with my life and fortune!'

Alarmed by this warmth, and doubtful whether it demanded gratitude or resentment, Juliet was silent.

'If you will not reveal to me your history,' he resumed, 'you will, at least, not refuse to let me divine it? I am a famous star-gazer; and, if once I can discover your ruling planet, I shall prognosticate your destiny in a second. Let me, then, read the lines of your face. Nay! you must not hide it! You must give me fair play. Or, shall I examine the palm of your hand?'

Juliet laughed, but drew on her gloves.

'O you little Tyrant! I must only, then, catch, as I can, a glimpse of your countenance; A nauseous task, enough, to dwell on any thing so ugly! All I can make out from it, just now, is the figure of a coronet.'

'A coronet?'

'Yes; under which I perceive the cypher D. Do you know any thing of any nobleman whose name begins with a D? I cannot decipher the rest of the letters, except that the last is – I think, an h.'

Juliet started.

'My art, I must, however, own, is at a stand, to discover whether this nobleman may be a lover or a kinsman. To discern that, the general lines of the face are inadequate. I must investigate the eyes.'

Juliet pertinaciously looked down.

'How now, my dainty, Ariel? Will you give me no answer? neither verbal nor visual? Will you not even tell me whether I must try to make the old peer my advocate, or whether I must run him through the body? Surely you won't let me court him as of kin if he be a rival? nor pink him as a rival if he be of kin?

'He is neither, I can assure you, Sir: he is nothing to me whatsoever.'

'You know, at least, then, it seems, whom I mean?'

'Sir?'

'My tiny elves have not here deluded me? I am always afraid lest those merry little wags should be playing me some prank. But it is you who are the wicked Will o' the Wisp, that lures all others, yet never can be lured yourself! Lord Denmeath has really, then, and in sober truth, the happiness of some way belonging to you?'

'No, Sir; – you mistake me; – I never – ' She left her phrase unfinished.

'Shall I relate what the prattling tell-tales have blabbed to me further? They pretend that Lord Denmeath ought himself to be your protector; but that he is so void of taste, so empty of sentiment, that he seeks to disguise, if not disown, an affinity that, with more liberal ideas, he would exult in as an honour.'

'Who talked of affinity, Sir?' cried Juliet, with quickness irrepressible. —

'Was it Lord Denmeath? – Did he name me to you?'

'Name you? Has any one named you? Indefinable, unconquerable, unfathomable Incognita! Has any one presumed to give you a human genealogy? Are you not straight descended from the clouds? without even taking the time to change yourself first into a mortal? Explain, expound, unravel to me, in soft pity – '

Juliet solemnly entreated him to forbear any further interrogatory, assuring him that all enquiry gave her pain.

'Then shall "the stars,"' cried he, '"fade away, the sun grow dim, and nature," – like my poor old carcass! – "sink in years," ere one grain more of the favourite attribute of our general mother shall be sown in my discourse! But you, in all things marvellous! You! have you really, and bona fide, so little in your composition of our naughty mamma, as not even to desire to know in what shape appeared to me the tattling little elf, that talked to me of Lord Denmeath?'

'You have not then, Sir, seen him?'

'Or if I had? – twenty interviews would not have initiated me into his affairs with so much promptitude, as twenty minutes sufficed for doing with my elfin fay.'

'I conjecture, then, Sir, your informant: Miss Selina Joddrel?'

'Even so. Upon determining to quit Brighthelmstone, three or four days ago, I drove over to Lewes, to offer what apologies I could suggest to Mrs Maple, for the vagaries of my hopeful nephew and heir, – who is suddenly set out for Constantinople in search, as he writes me word, of a fair Circassian! The last of my designs, in so delicate a case, you will easily believe, was to embarrass the injured and deserted fair one by my sight. But she had a fortitude far above my precautions. She flew to me herself; and her own plaintive tale had no sooner been bemoaned, than she hastened to favour me with the history of the whole house. I then learnt your sudden disappearance; and heard, with extreme satisfaction, from the indignation I had felt in seeing your ill treatment, that my meek sister-in-law had fallen into fits, from the first shock of finding that you were no longer under her dominion. My Lord Denmeath, who had already gone through the ceremonial of demanding Mrs Maple's permission to obtain a private audience with you, seemed thunderstruck at the news, that the bird he so much wished to sing to him was flown. The whole house was in disorder; running, enquiring, asserting, denying; – the wild Elinor alone was tame and tranquil, – for Mr Harleigh has kept constantly in sight.'

Delicate, and ever feeling Harleigh! thought Juliet; Her life, and My reputation, hang suspended upon the same guardian care!

'That eccentric and most original personage,' continued Sir Jaspar, 'has now wholly made over her mind to the study of controversial theology. Every chair is covered with polemical tracts, to prove one side of an argument, that every table is covered to disprove on the other. If she settle her opinion one way, she will probably become the foundress of some new-fangled monastery; if on the other, she will be discovered, some star-light night, seeking truth at the bottom of a well.'

Juliet then anxiously enquired into the state of her health.

'She seems to me,' answered the Baronet, 'quite as well as it is possible for a person to be, who is afflicted with the restless malady of struggling for occasion to exhibit character; instead of leaving its display to the jumble of nature and of accident. But these new systemers do not break out of bounds more wildly from whim, than they afterwards seek retreat within them, tamely, from experience. The little Selina, on the contrary, who has escaped the trouble of supporting a character, by not having an idea that could form one, had the kindness to make me the most liberal communication of every thing that she has either seen or heard, since she has been skipping about in this nether world; and, in her scampers from room to room, and from person to person, she had gathered sundry interesting particulars of a certain fair unknown. – '

He paused; looked anxious, and then went on.

'I would not be officious, – impertinent, nor importunate, – yet, could I but ascertain some points. – If, however, you will not unfold to me your history, will you, at least, – syren of syrens! – to develop why I demand it, hear me divulge my own?'

Juliet, surprised and amused, gratefully assented.

'Know, then, my fair torment! it pleased my wise progenitors to entail my estate upon my next of kin, in case I should have no lineal heir. Brought up with the knowledge of this restriction to the fantasies of my future will, I conceived an early suspicion that my younger brother built sundry vain-glorious castles upon my celibacy; and I determined not to reach my twentieth year before I put an end to his presumption. The first idea, therefore, that fastened upon my mind was that of marriage. But as I entertained a general belief, that I should every where be accepted from mercenary motives, I viewed all females with the scrutiny of a bargain-maker. Thankless for any mark of partiality, difficult even to absurdity, I sought new faces with restless impatience; modestly persuaded that I ought to find a companion without a blot! yet, whatever was my success, regularly making off from every fair charmer, after the second interview, through the fear of being taken in.'