Could a woman of Lady Audley’s discernment, it may be asked, place two young persons in such a situation, and doubt the consequences?  Those who are no longer young are liable to forget that love is a plant of early growth, and that the individuals that they have but a short time before beheld placing their supreme felicity on a rattle and a go-cart can so soon be actuated by the strongest passions of the human breast.

Sir Edmund completed his nineteenth year, and Alicia entered her eighteenth, when this happy state of unconscious security was destroyed by a circumstance which rent the veil from her eyes, and disclosed his sentiments in all their energy and warmth.  This circumstance was no other than a proposal of marriage to Alicia from a gentleman of large fortune and brilliant connexions who resided in their neighbourhood.  His character was as little calculated as his appearance to engage the affections of a young woman of delicacy and good sense.  But he was a man of consequence; heir to an earldom; member for the county; and Lady Audley, rejoicing at what she termed Alicia’s good fortune, determined that she should become his wife.

With mild firmness she rejected the honour intended her; but it was with difficulty that Lady Audley’s mind could adopt or understand the idea of an opposition to her wishes.  She could not seriously embrace the conviction that Alicia was determined to disobey her; and in order to bring her to a right understanding she underwent a system of persecution that tended naturally to increase the antipathy her suitor had inspired.  Lady Audley, with the indiscriminating zeal of prejudiced and overbearing persons, strove to recommend him to her niece br all those attributes which were of value in her own eyes; making allowance for a certain degree of in decision in her niece, but never admitting a doubt that in due time her will should be obeyed, as it had always hitherto been.

At this juncture Sir Edmund came down to the country, and was struck by the altered looks and pensive manners of his once cheerful cousin.  About a week after his arrival he found Alicia one morning in tears, after a long conversation with Lady Audley.  Sir Edmund tenderly soothed her, and entreated to be made acquainted with the cause of her distress.  She was so habituated to impart every thought to her cousin, the intimacy and sympathy of their souls were so entire, that she would not have concealed the late occurrence from him had she not been withheld by the natural timidity and delicacy a young woman feels in making her own conquests the subject of conversation.  But now so pathetically and irresistibly persuaded by Sir Edmund, and sensible that every distress of hers wounded his heart, Alicia candidly related to him the pursuit of her disagreeable suitor, and the importunities of Lady Audley in his favour.  Every word she had spoken had more and, more dispelled the mist that had so long hung over Sir Edmund’s inclinations.