'Is it really so, Miss Murray? and does your mamma know it, and yet wish you to marry him?'
'To be sure, she does! She knows more against him than I do, I believe: she keeps it from me lest I should be discouraged; not knowing how little I care about such things. For it's no great matter, really: he'll be all right when he's married, as mamma says; and reformed rakes make the best husbands, EVERYBODY knows. I only wish he were not so ugly--THAT'S all I think about: but then there's no choice here in the country; and papa WILL NOT let us go to London--'
'But I should think Mr. Hatfield would be far better.'
'And so he would, if he were lord of Ashby Park--there's not a doubt of it: but the fact is, I MUST have Ashby Park, whoever shares it with me.'
'But Mr. Hatfield thinks you like him all this time; you don't consider how bitterly he will be disappointed when he finds himself mistaken.'
'NO, indeed! It will be a proper punishment for his presumption-- for ever DARING to think I could like him. I should enjoy nothing so much as lifting the veil from his eyes.'
'The sooner you do it the better then.'
'No; I tell you, I like to amuse myself with him. Besides, he doesn't really think I like him. I take good care of that: you don't know how cleverly I manage. He may presume to think he can induce me to like him; for which I shall punish him as he deserves.'
'Well, mind you don't give too much reason for such presumption-- that's all,' replied I.
But all my exhortations were in vain: they only made her somewhat more solicitous to disguise her wishes and her thoughts from me. She talked no more to me about the Rector; but I could see that her mind, if not her heart, was fixed upon him still, and that she was intent upon obtaining another interview: for though, in compliance with her mother's request, I was now constituted the companion of her rambles for a time, she still persisted in wandering in the fields and lanes that lay in the nearest proximity to the road; and, whether she talked to me or read the book she carried in her hand, she kept continually pausing to look round her, or gaze up the road to see if anyone was coming; and if a horseman trotted by, I could tell by her unqualified abuse of the poor equestrian, whoever he might be, that she hated him BECAUSE he was not Mr. Hatfield.