Mowbray was at once softened and embarrassed.
“What folly is this?” he said; “you say the most cutting things to me—are ready to fly from my house—and when I am provoked to make an angry answer, you burst into tears!”
“Say you did not mean what you said, my dearest brother!” exclaimed Clara; “O say you did not mean it!—Do not take my liberty from me—it is all I have left, and, God knows, it is a poor comfort in the sorrows I undergo. I will put a fair face on every thing—will go down to the Well—will wear what you please, and say what you please—but O! leave me the liberty of my solitude here—let me weep alone in the house of my father—and do not force a broken-hearted sister to lay her death at your door.—My span must be a brief one, but let not your hand shake the sand-glass!—Disturb me not—let me pass quietly—I do not ask this so much for my sake as for your own. I would have you think of me, sometimes, Mowbray, after I am gone, and without the bitter reflections which the recollection of harsh usage will assuredly bring with it. Pity me, were it but for your own sake.—I have deserved nothing but compassion at your hand—There are but two of us on earth, why should we make each other miserable?”
She accompanied these entreaties with a flood of tears, and the most heart-bursting sobs. Mowbray knew not what to determine. On the one hand, he was bound by his promise to the Earl; on the other, his sister was in no condition to receive such a visitor; nay, it was most probable, that if he adopted the strong measure of compelling her to receive him, her behaviour would probably be such as totally to break off the projected match, on the success of which he had founded so many castles in the air. In this dilemma, he had again recourse to argument.
“Clara,” he said, “I am, as I have repeatedly said, your only relation and guardian—if there be any real reason why you ought not to receive, and, at least, make a civil reply to such a negotiation as the Earl of Etherington has thought fit to open, surely I ought to be intrusted with it. You enjoyed far too much of that liberty which you seem to prize so highly during my father's lifetime—in the last years of it at least—have you formed any foolish attachment during that time, which now prevents you from receiving such a visit as Lord Etherington has threatened?”
“Threatened!—the expression is well chosen,” said Miss Mowbray; “and nothing can be more dreadful than such a threat, excepting its accomplishment.”
“I am glad your spirits are reviving,” replied her brother; “but that is no answer to my question.”
“Is it necessary,” said Clara, “that one must have actually some engagement or entanglement, to make them unwilling to be given in marriage, or even to be pestered upon such a subject?—Many young men declare they intend to die bachelors, why may not I be permitted to commence old maid at three-and-twenty?—Let me do so, like a kind brother, and there were never nephews and nieces so petted and so scolded, so nursed and so cuffed by a maiden aunt, as your children, when you have them, shall be by aunt Clara.”
“And why not say all this to Lord Etherington?” said Mowbray; “wait until he propose such a terrible bugbear as matrimony, before you refuse to receive him. Who knows, the whim that he hinted at may have passed away—he was, as you say, flirting with Lady Binks, and her ladyship has a good deal of address, as well as beauty.”
“Heaven improve both, (in an honest way,) if she will but keep his lordship to herself!” said Clara.