"Well, then! actually that she thought my religious principles not sufficiently serious! That her brother disapproved of my morals and conduct! I offered her any terms! To attend chapel with her once every Sunday; to refrain from Sunday dinners, and Sunday travelling! Not even to ride out on horseback that day; and, in short, to pass Sir Andrew's whole Sunday bill in my house; but it did not satisfy her! What would they have!" continued Sir Patrick, gnawing his lip with vexation. "I gave her a carte blanche to put my name down as a subscriber to as many tract, missionary, and slave-abolition societies, as she pleased, and asked her how many distressed families she wished me to maintain."
"How excessively handsome!" said Agnes, satirically. "All I need say is, it was very genteel!"
"Yet Clara persevered in giving me a plump decline! No wonder you look incredulous! I can scarcely yet believe it myself! This shall not last, however! I felt piqued at first, and left her. I am always too soon, or too late, in all I do; but it must be tried again and again! I would rather live without the sun and stars, than without Clara Granville! The very repetition of her name is a pleasure! Agnes, what can you do to assist me!"
"Assist! I shall do everything in the world to bring you back your senses, Pat! Rather than see that grave, priggish, matter-of-fact, Clara, my sister-in-law, I would——"
Agnes could not, at the moment, think of any illustration sufficiently strong to exemplify her abhorrence of such a catastrophe, and twisted her ringlets over her finger for some moments, in dignified and portentous silence. At length she said, with an air of supreme contempt, "You know, Pat! Clara Granville has not a shilling in the wide world!—never had! At school she used to be like a bale of cotton from the manufactories; cotton stockings, pink gingham frocks, and horrid grey beaver gloves! She once had a silk dress, and it was turned, I think, three times!"
"Fiddlesticks and nonsense! So much the better! She will be an excellent wife for a poor man; and poor enough I shall soon be! You need not argue with a milestone, but put a good face on the matter in time, Agnes; for during all the four thousand years that men have been falling in love, and marrying, I believe no one ever did so merely to please his sister, and I am not the man to begin! In most respects, I may, perhaps, be sordidly anxious for money, but in the matter of love I have taken the whim of being disinterested. If Clara had the Bank of England for her portion, I could not love her more. As for heiresses, I hear the only one worth a thought, Miss Howard Smytheson, with her million a-year, is bespoke to order for De Crespigny."
"Perhaps he has taken the whim of being disinterested also!" replied Agnes, arranging a favorite curl with great complacency at a mirror. "His uncle is very arbitrary; and like all uncles, continues for ever to think his nephew a perfect boy. He threatened lately to marry himself, if Captain De Crespigny declined! That old dot has some spirit! He seems not to be aware that there is such a thing in the world for himself as a refusal; and certainly, Pat, I can scarcely fancy the woman in existence who could refuse you. I hardly know whether to wonder most that Clara had the opportunity, or that she had the inclination!"
"The whim will soon wear off! She loves me, that is certain; but if even she hated me, it would make no difference in my attachment. I like her the better for showing some spirit, and great disinterestedness. Clara's conduct was like herself, beautiful. Her affections are mine! I see it, and no earthly power can tear her from me! I would follow her to the very grave."
Sir Patrick did not by any means find Clara's resolutions, which were formed upon principle, of such very malleable materials as he had prophesied. His own feelings were, on all occasions, like a whirlwind; and his eagerness, excited to excess by opposition, became unbounded to meet Clara, or to catch the most distant glimpse of her shadow,—but in vain. Day after day he contrived to pass beneath her window, but she had adopted invisibility; and evening after evening, he obliged Agnes, greatly against her inclination, to send the very kindest notes of invitation, which he dictated himself, asking her to the house; but the polite apology which invariably returned, might almost have been lithographed, it became so frequently necessary; yet still Sir Patrick persevered and hoped, saying one day, in a voice of irritability and depression, to Agnes, "It seems as if we were destined never to see Clara again!"
"That would be too much happiness," exclaimed Agnes peevishly; twisting Clara's last reply into a thousand shapes and tossing it into the fire. "This is all so like you, Pat! You invent a thousand reasons for wishing something till it is obtained, and then you care for it no more! If Clara Granville consented, you would be, like Sir Peter Teazle, 'the most miserable man alive before people were done wishing you joy!' Men are all so changeable and selfish!"