your father and mother already about it; I find them, indeed, very angry and dissatisfied with their daughter, but upon no other account backward or unwilling to the proposal. Well, Madam, said I, a little surprised, then you have gone further in this matter than I imagined. And what's next? said I. Next, child, said she, why, if you I would go along with me, and speak but one word to your father, nay, half so much as you did to me just now, for no cause at all, it would be all over: and if the family was uneasy to you upon any other account, we should fetch you out of it again, in as short a time as you could desire. Do, child, says the good old lady, I'll introduce you, I'll make half submission for you.

your

Bro. Indeed I'd have gone with her; I wonder at you. If any one would do half so much for me, I'd go to-morrow morning, for as far as things are gone with me.

Sist. Well, I was once of the mind to have gone too; but I did not.

of

Bro. What could you say to her?

Sist. I said these very words-" Madam, I find a greater obstacle here than before; and I don't know, but if it had not been on this account, I should have been glad your offer: but do you think my father shall say, that whereas I would not submit to him upon the just foundation on which he differed with me, yet that I could come home to cry for a husband? No, Madam, no one on earth shall say that of me; I am not in such distress yet."

Bro. I should never have made that scruple; indeed, sister, you are wondrous nice.

Sist. Why, brother, what would you think of any young lady that should make way for your addresses upon such low terms; would you not think her very fond?

Bro. No, indeed; and he would not neither, I dare say.

Sist. I resolved I would not put myself so much at his

mercy.

Bro. What said he to it?

Sist. He said, what was like himself, very obliging. He told me, that now I laid a double affliction upon him; for I made him, that was willing to do any thing in the world to bring about my return to my father, be the only obstacle in the way to it. I told him, he knew how to remove that obstacle very easily, which was by thinking no more of me; • and perhaps in time I might see my mistake, and, by my aunt's mediation, make my peace with my father; or my father might abate his rigorous humour, and it might go off again without it; or if neither happened, as I was not a wife fit for a gentleman, and was too proud to take up with a footman, I was in no haste, I could remain as I

was.

Bro. You were extravagantly stiff.

my

condi

Sist. Why, really, brother, I think my circumstances require it more than if I had been in my father's house; for, to have consented one moment sooner for tion, had been the same thing as to be taken in charity; besides, I foresaw the dispute we should have about what our family breach began upon, and to which this was but an introduction, and therefore I was resolved to be open, and free with them beforehand, whether we came to agree at last or no; and as I have told you all this only to bring in the other, so I'll omit all the rest of our discourse, and come to that point.

Bro. Do so, for I think you said I was a little concerned in it.

Sist. So you are, but not much. Well, Mr.

and my aunt too, said a great many very kind things to me after that; but at last I turned to my aunt, Madam, says I, I cannot but think all our discourse remote and foreign ; and since you will have me speak of a thing which I never had any thoughts of, I ought to be very plain and free, especially since you are pleased to give me leave. my dear, said my aunt. Why, then, Madam, said I, we

Do so,

are talking of reconciling me to my father, and as I told

you, I shall be very glad of it; but as to making that reconciliation a means to what Mr. - proposes, I do not see it will be any thing to the purpose. Why so, niece? says my aunt. Why, Madam, said I, this was the reason why I have two or three times asked Mr. if he rightly understood the reasons and circumstances of the breach between me and my father. He was pleased to say he did, though I can hardly think it. says I, it is my opinion, that Mr.

Now, Madam, and I shall differ

about the same things, as my father and I did; though perhaps not with so much unkindness, especially if we differ about it beforehand; and therefore it is best fighting that battle before than after, for you see I can deliver myself from the fury of a father; but I know not my case, if it had been a husband: besides, Madam, I think it more honest and kind to Mr. -- to have all this matter settled and disputed now, than to leave things to hereafter, when I shall have neither liberty to go away, nor freedom of speech at home, which would be to make my bad case ten times worse than it is.

Bro. What said your aunt to this?

Sist. She was stunned at it at first, and seemed willing to have put it off to another time; which she afterwards told me it was, because she was afraid my case should be represented too much to my disadvantage. Mr. seeing his mother too backward to talk of it, thought there might be something she would not have him to hear, and withdrew, which I was not pleased with; for since I saw they would make a match of it, and I saw no great reason to be averse, or at least obstinately so, I was willing to come to a certainty, and know what kind of life I was to live; for I was resolved I would no more be a married However, he

nun, than I would be a cloistered daughter. being withdrawn, my aunt and I began the following discourse, which I'll give you as short as I can. My aunt spoke first, thus :—

Aunt. Come, child, now my son is gone, let me be plain

with you; and pray take all the freedom and liberty with me that you would now, if your brother was here, and let us talk of this matter, for I would not have you stand in your own light again; you see how things stand with you and your father; and, as you said before, I doubt it will be hard to bring you to an accommodation; but this match will make you entirely easy.

Niece. Madam, said 1, as you gave me a liberty to speak freely, I hope you will not take it ill, that I am very plain. I have no particular objection against the match with your son, as to himself: indeed I did not look upon it at first as a serious proposal; but since you assure me it is, and as you are instead both of a father and mother to me, I shall give myself up to be entirely disposed of by you only. My present difficulties relate to my own circumstances: and the ground and reason of the breach with my father seems to me to be a plain foundation of the like with my husband, if I should ever marry Mr., which would make me more miserable than I am now.

Aunt. You must explain yourself, child, I know the breach between you and your father, was begun about religion, and the reformation of his family, which he has happily effected, and which you and your brother opposed. I am loth to bring those things to your mind; I observe they always bring tears into your eyes; things were carried too high we all have thought you were in the wrong, but that is not the case now.

Niece. Pardon me, Madam, I said; that is just the case now; and as you have heard parties against me, so I doubt not but you will hear me too; for while you believe me in the wrong, Mr. and I can never be right. Suppose I should do just by him as I did by my father, what then?

Aunt. I hope you will not, my dear.

Niece. No, Madam, indeed I will not; I will not go away from him: but to prevent that, I will never have him, till he and I adjust the matter as to what liberty 1 may ex

pect, and what not; for I will never marry, as I said, to be 'my husband's cloistered wife, any more than I would stay at home to be my father's nun.

Aunt. Why, child, your difference with your father, as I understand it, was, that when he set up the worship of God in his family, you would not join with him, but made a scoff at his resolution of reforming his family, and several such things.

Niece. Did I not say, Madam, that I believe Mr. and you also, had not a fair account of the thing? I cannot wonder, Madam, that you thought me in the wrong; I wonder Mr. could think of me for a wife,

if I had been such a daughter.

Aunt. Come, child, undeceive me then, and let me hear it all.

Niece. No, Madam, let me only let you hear it right. My father and mother had bred up me and my brother, as you know, till we are come to be what we call men and women. We had been used to company, to good manners, to converse in the world with people of quality and good breeding, and were come to an age in which we might be thought fit to be trusted with so much of the government of ourselves, as to be past schooling and tutelage. We made no other use of those liberties, than became a modest behaviour: they can charge us with nothing crimi. nal or scandalous; no vice, nothing injurious to our reputation; when all of a sudden, without any notice, we are fallen upon, abridged of all lawful liberties, were to have lectures of family discipline read to us, which we wero absolutely to submit to, and to commence children again. This, you may be sure, we thought hard; and my share was Immediately to fall under correction; for my mother, without any provocation, as I thought, flew to my closet, took away all my books, and flung them into the fire, and laid her hands upon me into the bargain. This, I thought, at my age, was unreasonable usage.

Aunt. Well, child, but you said you made no ill use of