Page:Adventures of Rachel Cunningham.djvu/17

 Annapolis, on the Severn, a handsome and particularly pleasant town in Arundel County, where Mr. G— was the owner of a very noble mansion, and where his introduction of Rachel Cunningham excited a strong feeling of discord, as well as being otherwise the cause of distressing consequences.

His sisters, two accomplished and lovely young ladies, very strenuously, on their privilege as his nearest relatives to object, and their ever since his coming into possession having resided with him, remonstrated against the impropriety of his bringing a lewd woman into the house besides the gross indecency of even supposing that they could be brought to debase their character, to the outrage of all modest as well virtuous feeling, by associating themselves with, at best, a kept mistress, and that, that they were positively determined not to submit to. On which he peremptorily informed them, that his determination was as positive as theirs could he on the subject; that the house was his—that she (Rachel) was in the house—that it was for his pleasure and not for theirs. and that in that house she should not only remain but be also the mistress of it; and further, that the young lady (Rachel) was at least equally accomplished with themselves,therefore, whether they would or would not submit lo meet and receive her on sociable terms was matter of total indifference to him, with this exception only in reservation, that if their resolves continued as they had expressed them, in the negative, his resolve was and would be to command and enforce their immediate absence. This, as may be readily supposed, in the first instance their maintained refusal to comply, and in the latter, finally operated in their expulsion from under his roof.

Thus was Rachel Cunningham left in full possession of the mistress-ship of the domestic affairs of the house, the command of all the servants, and the complete government of her paramour's will and actions.

Possession by the right of conquest gives sanction to the most despotic exercise of power, and, I may add, never fails to compel a prompt obedience; which assertion is amply verified in the following circumstance of the heroine of these extraordinary scenes:—

Some few days subsequent to Mr. G—'s expelling his two