“There’s my own sister Caroline, above all artifice and affectation.”
“But,” said Caroline.
“But—Oh! Caroline, don’t go back—don’t palter with us—abide by your own words, and your own character, and don’t condescend to any pitiful buts.”
“You do not yet know the nature of my but.”
“Nor do I wish to know it, nor will I hear it,” cried Rosamond, stopping her ears, “because I know, whatever it is, it will lower you in my opinion. You have fairly acknowledged that Colonel Hungerford possesses every virtue, public and private, that can make him worthy of you—not a single fault on which to ground one possible, imaginable, rational but. Temper, manners, talents, character, fortune, family, fame, every thing the heart of woman can desire.”
“Every thing against which the heart of woman should guard itself,” said Caroline.
“Guard!—Why guard?—What is it you suspect? What crime can you invent to lay to his charge?”
“I suspect him of nothing. It is no crime—except, perhaps, in your eyes, dear Rosamond,” said Caroline, smiling—“no crime not to love me.”
“Oh! is that all? Now I understand and forgive you,” said Rosamond, “if it is only that you fear.”
“I do not recollect that I said I feared it,” said Caroline.