treating with contempt the affectionate regard of an honest heart."

I was too much shocked at this undisguised attempt to bully me into
an acquiescence in the interested and unprincipled plan for their
own aggrandisement, which I now perceived my uncle and his son had
deliberately formed, at once to find strength or collectedness to
frame an answer to what he had said. At length I replied, with a
firmness that surprised myself:--

"In all that you have just now said, sir, you have grossly misstated
my conduct and motives. Your information must have been most
incorrect, as far as it regards my conduct towards my cousin; my
manner towards him could have conveyed nothing but dislike; and if
anything could have added to the strong aversion which I have long
felt towards him, it would be his attempting thus to frighten me into
a marriage which he knows to be revolting to me, and which is sought
by him only as a means for securing to himself whatever property is
mine."

As I said this, I fixed my eyes upon those of my uncle, but he was too
old in the world's ways to falter beneath the gaze of more searching
eyes than mine; he simply said--

"Are you acquainted with the provisions of your father's will?"

I answered in the affirmative; and he continued:--"Then you must be
aware that if my son Edward were, which God forbid, the unprincipled,
reckless man, the ruffian you pretend to think him"--(here he spoke
very slowly, as if he intended that every word which escaped him
should be registered in my memory, while at the same time the