“But I should think Mr. Hatfield would be far better.”
“And so he would, if he were lord of Ashby Park—there’s not a doubt of it: but the fact is, I must have Ashby Park, whoever shares it with me.”
“But Mr. Hatfield thinks you like him all this time; you don’t consider how bitterly he will be disappointed when he finds himself mistaken.”
“No, indeed! It will be a proper punishment for his presumption—for ever daring to think I could like him. I should enjoy nothing so much as lifting the veil from his eyes.”
“The sooner you do it the better then.”
“No; I tell you, I like to amuse myself with him. Besides, he doesn’t really think I like him. I take good care of that: you don’t know how cleverly I manage. He may presume to think he can induce me to like him; for which I shall punish him as he deserves.”
“Well, mind you don’t give too much reason for such presumption—that’s all,” replied I.
But all my exhortations were in vain: they only made her somewhat more solicitous to disguise her wishes and her thoughts from me. She talked no more to me about the Rector; but I could see that her mind, if not her heart, was fixed upon him still, and that she was intent upon obtaining another interview: for though, in compliance with her mother’s request, I was now constituted the companion of her rambles for a time, she still persisted in wandering in the fields and lanes that lay in the nearest proximity to the road; and, whether she talked to me or read the book she carried in her hand, she kept continually pausing to look round her, or gaze up the road to see if anyone was coming; and if a horseman trotted by, I could tell by her unqualified abuse of the poor equestrian, whoever he might be, that she hated him because he was not Mr. Hatfield.
“Surely,” thought I, “she is not so indifferent to him as she believes herself to be, or would have others to believe her; and her mother’s anxiety is not so wholly causeless as she affirms.”
Three days passed away, and he did not make his appearance. On the afternoon of the fourth, as we were walking beside the park-palings in the memorable field, each furnished with a book (for I always took care to provide myself with something to be doing when she did not require me to talk), she suddenly interrupted my studies by exclaiming—