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142 quite so weak as you profess to be. Even a whining, silly girl could only say,—'Allow me leisure to deliberate—marriage is a serious affair—I must have time to consider;' with such like superfluous fooleries unbecoming your age and sex, and more particularly the filial duty you owe to myself." De Brooke was about to expostulate; but the angry parent, in tones of irony, continued: "Pray, say no more—say no more, sir; I am already sufficiently convinced how obstinately you are bent on opposing my views for your good, whatever I advise. You dissent from—in short, I know you well, sir; and how you have ever disregarded my counsels: but henceforward I will have done with you."

Roused by an address so vehement and scornful, and, as De Brooke conceived, unmerited, the fire of passion, which he had been struggling to subdue, in his turn kindled within him; and as the incensed Sir Aubrey concluded his last sentence, he had silently ejaculated, "If he knew the whole—if even I had declared my marriage—he could not be more vindictive. Then wherefore any longer conceal it?" Starting from his seat, he approached his father, who was inwardly muttering sounds of anger. Raising his voice, he said, "Know then, sir, that an already-formed attachment to a young