No vices, Madam!--

Hear me out, child.--You have not behaved much amiss to him: we have
seen with pleasure that you have not--

O Madam, must I not now speak!

I shall have done presently.--A young creature of your virtuous and
pious turn, she was pleased to say, cannot surely love a profligate:
you love your brother too well, to wish to marry one who had like to
have killed him, and who threatened your uncles, and defies us all.
You have had your own way six or seven times: we want to secure you
against a man so vile. Tell me (I have a right to know) whether you
prefer this man to all others?--Yet God forbid that I should know you
do; for such a declaration would make us all miserable. Yet tell me,
are your affections engaged to this man?

I knew not what the inference would be, if I said they were not.

You hesitate--You answer me not--You cannot answer me.--Rising--Never
more will I look upon you with an eye of favour--

O Madam, Madam! Kill me not with your displeasure--I would not, I
need not, hesitate one moment, did I not dread the inference, if I
answer you as you wish.--Yet be that inference what it will, your
threatened displeasure will make me speak. And I declare to you, that
I know not my own heart, if it not be absolutely free. And pray, let
me ask my dearest Mamma, in what has my conduct been faulty, that,
like a giddy creature, I must be forced to marry, to save me from--