fasten Miss Partington upon her; as she doubted not, with my approbation.
[Surely, thought I, she has not received a duplicate of Miss Howe's
letter of detection!] They heard her cries. My insult was undoubtedly
premeditated. By my whole recollected behaviour to her, previous to it,
it must be so. I had the vilest of views, no question. And my treatment
of her put it out of all doubt.

Soul over all, Belford! She seems sensible of liberties that my passion
made me insensible of having taken, or she could not so deeply resent.

She besought me to give over all thoughts of her. Sometimes, she said,
she thought herself cruelly treated by her nearest and dearest relations;
at such times, a spirit of repining and even of resentment took place;
and the reconciliation, at other times so desirable, was not then so much
the favourite wish of her heart, as was the scheme she had formerly
planned--of taking her good Norton for her directress and guide, and
living upon her own estate in the manner her grandfather had intended she
should live.

This scheme she doubted not that her cousin Morden, who was one of her
trustees for that estate, would enable her, (and that, as she hoped,
without litigation,) to pursue. And if he can, and does, what, Sir, let
me ask you, said she, have I seen in your conduct, that should make me
prefer to it an union of interest, where there is such a disunion in
minds?

So thou seest, Jack, there is reason, as well as resentment, in the
preference she makes against me!--Thou seest, that she presumes to think
that she can be happy without me; and that she must be unhappy with me!