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-- From what?  Let me beseech you, Madam, to be the guardian of my  reputation!  Let not your Clarissa be precipitated into a state she  wishes not to enter into with any man!  And this upon a supposition  that otherwise she shall marry herself, and disgrace her whole family.

Well then, Clary [passing over the force of my plea] if your heart be  free--

O my beloved Mamma, let the usual generosity of your dear heart  operate in my favour.  Urge not upon me the inference that made me  hesitate.

I won't be interrupted, Clary--You have seen in my behaviour to you,  on this occasion, a truly maternal tenderness; you have observed that  I have undertaken the task with some reluctance, because the man is  not every thing; and because I know you carry your notions of  perfection in a man too high--

Dearest Madam, this one time excuse me!--Is there then any danger that  I should be guilty of an imprudent thing for the man's sake you hint  at?

Again interrupted!--Am I to be questioned, and argued with?  You know  this won't do somewhere else.  You know it won't.  What reason then,  ungenerous girl, can you have for arguing with me thus, but because  you think from my indulgence to you, you may?

What can I say?  What can I do?  What must that cause be that will not  bear being argued upon?

Again!  Clary Harlowe!

Dearest Madam, forgive me: it was always my pride and my pleasure to  obey you. But look upon that man--see but the disagreeableness of his  person--

Now, Clary, do I see whose person you have in your eye!--Now is Mr.  Solmes, I see, but comparatively disagreeable; disagreeable only as  another man has a much more specious person

But, Madam, are not his manners equally so?--Is not his person the  true representative of his mind?--That other man is not, shall not be,  any thing to me, release me but from this one man, whom my heart,  unbidden, resists.

Condition thus with your father.  Will he bear, do you think, to be  thus dialogued with?  Have I not conjured you, as you value my peace-- What is it that I do not give up?--This very task, because I  apprehended you would not be easily persuaded, is a task indeed upon  me.  And will you give up nothing?  Have you not refused as many as  have been offered to you?  If you would not have us guess for whom,  comply; for comply you must, or be looked upon as in a state of