My aunt, who again stays all night, just left me. She came to tell me the result of my friends' deliberations about me. It is this:
Next Wednesday morning they are all to be assembled: to wit, my father, mother, my uncles, herself, and my uncle Hervey; my brother and sister of course: my good Mrs. Norton is likewise to be admitted: and Dr. Lewen is to be at hand, to exhort me, it seems, if there be occasion: but my aunt is not certain whether he is to be among them, or to tarry till called in.
When this awful court is assembled, the poor prisoner is to be brought in, supported by Mrs. Norton; who is to be first tutored to instruct me in the duty of a child; which it seems I have forgotten.
Nor is the success at all doubted, my aunt says: since it is not believed that I can be hardened enough to withstand the expostulations of so venerable a judicature, although I have withstood those of several of them separately. And still the less, as she hints at extraordinary condescensions from my father. But what condescensions, even from my father, can induce me to make such a sacrifice as is expected from me?
Yet my spirits will never bear up, I doubt, at such a tribunal—my father presiding in it.
Indeed I expected that my trials would not be at an end till he had admitted me into his awful presence.
What is hoped from me, she says, is, that I will cheerfully, on Tuesday night, if not before, sign the articles; and so turn the succeeding day's solemn convention into a day of festivity. I am to have the license sent me up, however, and once more the settlements, that I may see how much in earnest they are.
She further hinted, that my father himself would bring up the settlements for me to sign.
O my dear! what a trial will this be!—How shall I be able to refuse my father the writing of my name?—To my father, from whose presence I have been so long banished!—He commanding and entreating, perhaps, in a breath!—How shall I be able to refuse this to my father?
They are sure, she says, something is working on Mr. Lovelace's part, and perhaps on mine: and my father would sooner follow to the grave, than see me his wife.