Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/55

 a tone of mingled grief and haughtiness, thus addressed me:

"Whatever evils you have resolved to overwhelm me with, I can bear. You think I have deserved to suffer; but who, Sir, made you a judge in your own cause? I never deceived you, I told you I had no heart to give; you persisted, ungenerously laid a tax on the gratitude my dear father felt, and insisted that the hand of his daughter should be your reward for services, which common humanity would have dictated to the poorest peasant, had his power been equal to your's. Your claims, added to an unhappy, and I will say unjust, prejudice my father had conceived against the man I loved, proved destruction to my peace and happiness; commands which I had never disputed, and the impending horrors of a parent's curse drew from me an equivocal promise that I would give you my hand. Heaven has punished me for a duplicity I could not, according to my own feelings, avoid or evade. At the altar, neither my heart nor lips ratified the