Scarcely was my sister gone, than I had the opportunity of considering that latter possibility. I was called downstairs to Captain Treherne. Never did I see an unfortunate youth in such a state of mind.
What passed between us I cannot set down clearly; it was on his side so incoherent, on mine so awkward, and uncomfortable. I gathered that he had just had a letter from his father, refusing consent, or at least insisting on the delay of the marriage, which his friend Dr. Urquhart also advised. Exceedingly obliged to that gentleman for his polite interference in our family affairs, thought I.
The poor lover seemed so much in earnest that I pitied him. Missing Lisabel, he had asked to see me, in order to know where she was gone.
I told him, to the Cedars. He turned as white as a sheet.
“Serves me right, serves me right, for my confounded folly and cowardice. I never will take anybody's advice again. What did she think of my keeping away so long? Did she despise—hate me?”.
I said my sister had not confided to me any such opinion of him.
“She shall not meet Granton, that fool—that knave—that—— Could I overtake her before she reaches the Cedars?”
I informed him of a short cut across the moor, and he was out of the house in two minutes, before Penelope came into the drawing-room.
Penelope said I had done exceedingly wrong—that to send him after our Lisa, and allow her to be seen driving with him about the country, was the height of indecorum—that I had no sense of family dignity, or prudence, or propriety—was not a woman at all, but a mere sentimental hookworm.
I answered, I was glad of it, if to be a woman was to resemble the women I knew best.