Daughter.  I am now disposed to attend to ever thing my manna is disposed to say to me.

M. Why then, child—­why then, my dear—­[and the good lady’s face looked so plump, so smooth, and so shining!]—­I see you are all attention, Nancy!—­But don’t be surprised!—­don’t be uneasy!—­But I have—­I have—­ Where is it?—­[and yet it lay next her heart, never another near it—­so no difficulty to have found it]—­I have a letter, my dear!—­[And out from her bosom it came:  but she still held it in her hand]—­I have a letter, child.—­It is—­it is—­it is from—­from a gentleman, I assure you!—­ [lifting up her head, and smiling.]

There is no delight to a daughter, thought I, in such surprises as seem to be collecting.  I will deprive my mother of the satisfaction of making a gradual discovery.

D. From Mr. Antony Harlowe, I suppose, Madam?

M. [Lips drawn closer:  eye raised] Why, my dear!—­I cannot but own—­
But how, I wonder, could you think of Mr. Anthony Harlowe?

D. How, Madam, could I think of any body else?

M. How could you think of any body else?—­[angry, and drawing back her face].  But do you know the subject, Nancy?

D. You have told it, Madam, by your manner of breaking it to me.  But, indeed, I question not that he had two motives in his visits—­both equally agreeable to me; for all that family love me dearly.

M. No love lost, if so, between you and them.  But this [rising] is what I get—­so like your papa!—­I never could open my heart to him!

D. Dear Madam, excuse me.  Be so good as to open your heart to me.—­ I don’t love the Harlowes—­but pray excuse me.

M. You have put me quite out with your forward temper! [angrily sitting down again.]

D. I will be all patience and attention.  May I be allowed to read his letter?

M. I wanted to advise with you upon it.—­But you are such a strange creature!—­you are always for answering one before one speaks!

D. You’ll be so good as to forgive me, Madam.—­But I thought every body (he among the rest) knew that you had always declared against a second marriage.

M. And so I have.  But then it was in the mind I was in.  Things may offer——­

I stared.

M. Nay, don’t be surprised!—­I don’t intend—­I don’t intend—­

D. Not, perhaps, in the mind you are in, Madam.

M. Pert creature! [rising again]——­We shall quarrel, I see!—­There’s no——­

D. Once more, dear Madam, I beg your excuse.  I will attend in silence.  —­Pray, Madam, sit down again—­pray do [she sat down.]—­May I see the letter?

No; there are some things in it you won’t like.—­Your temper is known, I find, to be unhappy.  But nothing bad against you; intimations, on the contrary, that you shall be the better for him, if you oblige him.

Not a living soul but the Harlowes, I said, thought me ill-tempered:  and I was contented that they should, who could do as they had done by the most universally acknowledged sweetness in the world.