What a cruel thing is suspense!--I will ask leave to go to church this
afternoon. I expect to be denied. But, if I do not ask, they may allege,
that my not going is owing to myself.
***
I desired to speak with Shorey. Shorey came. I directed her to carry to
my mother my request for permission to go to church this afternoon. What
think you was the return? Tell her, that she must direct herself to
her brother for any favour she has to ask.--So, my dear, I am to be
delivered up to my brother!
I was resolved, however, to ask of him this favour. Accordingly, when
they sent me up my solitary dinner, I gave the messenger a billet,
in which I made it my humble request through him to my father, to be
permitted to go to church this afternoon.
This was the contemptuous answer: 'Tell her, that her request will be
taken into consideration to-morrow.'
Patience will be the fittest return I can make to such an insult. But
this method will not do with me; indeed it will not! And yet it is but
the beginning, I suppose, of what I am to expect from my brother, now I
am delivered up to him.
On recollection, I thought it best to renew my request. I did. The
following is a copy of what I wrote, and what follows that, of the
answer sent me.