Would you not have thought something might have been obtained in my
favour, from an offer so reasonable, from an expedient so proper, as I
imagine, to put a tolerable end, as from myself, to a correspondence I
hardly know how otherwise, with safety to some of my family, to get rid
of?--But my brother's plan, (which my mother spoke of, and of which I
have in vain endeavoured to procure a copy, with a design to take it to
pieces, and expose it, as I question not there is room to do,) joined
with my father's impatience of contradiction, are irresistible.
I have not been in bed all night; nor am I in the least drowsy.
Expectation, and hope, and doubt, (an uneasy state!) kept me
sufficiently wakeful. I stept down at my usual time, that it might not
be known I had not been in bed; and gave directions in the family way.
About eight o'clock, Shorey came to me from my mother with orders to
attend her in her chamber.
My mother had been weeping, I saw by her eyes: but her aspect seemed to
be less tender, and less affectionate, than the day before; and this, as
soon as I entered into her presence, struck me with an awe, which gave a
great damp to my spirits.
Sit down, Clary Harlowe; I shall talk to you by-and-by: and continued
looking into a drawer among laces and linens, in a way neither busy nor
unbusy.
I believe it was a quarter of an hour before she spoke to me (my heart
throbbing with the suspense all the time); and then she asked me coldly,
What directions I had given for the day?
I shewed her the bill of fare for this day, and to-morrow, if, I said,
it pleased her to approve of it.
She made a small alteration in it; but with an air so cold and so
solemn, as added to my emotions.
Mr. Harlowe talks of dining out to-day, I think, at my brother
Antony's--
Mr. Harlowe!--Not my father!--Have I not then a father!--thought I.
Sit down when I bid you.