Still a lingering reluctance, the constitution of my sex, and the expiring struggles of duty, made me defer, from time to time, the performance of my engagement. But I was hurried at last into its fulfilment, by one of those casualties which are allowed to decide the most important concerns of the thoughtless and unprincipled. My father one day surprised Lord Frederick at my feet; and, glad perhaps of an opportunity to mark his contempt for the artificial distinctions of society, as well as justly indignant at the disregard shown to his injunctions, he dismissed my lover from the house, in terms more decided than courtly. As my father had four stout footmen to enforce his commands, his Lordship had no choice but acquiescence. He therefore retired; and my father, raising his foot to the panel of the room door, shut it with a force that made the house shake. His sense of dignity for once giving way to indignation, my father, instead of taking his well-known posture of exhortation with his back to the fire, walked up to me, and strongly grasping my hand, exclaimed, 'What the d--l do you mean, Ellen Percy? Did not I tell you, I wouldn't have this puppy of a lord coming here a fortune-hunting? Don't I know the kidney of you all; Don't I know, that if you let a fellow chatter nonsense to you long enough, he is sure of you at last?--Look you, Ellen Percy, let me have no more of this. I can give you three hundred thousand pounds, and I have a scheme in my head that may make it twice as much;--and I'll have your eldest son called John Percy, ay, and his son after him; and you shall marry no proud, saucy, aristocratical beggar, to look down upon the man who was the making of him; d----n me, if you do, Ellen Percy.' Then throwing my arm from him, with a vehemence that made me stagger, he quitted the room. Even in minds far better regulated than mine, violence is more likely to produce resentment than submission. My surprise quickly gave place to indignation. The unceremonious expulsion of my visiter seemed nothing short of an insult. To place me at the head of a family into which I must admit no guest without permission, was treating me like a baby!--a disgrace scarcely endurable to those who are still a little doubtful of their right to be treated like women. I earnestly recommend to all ladies who see cause of offence against their rightful governors (an accident which will sometimes happen, notwithstanding the universal meekness of ladies, and the well-known moderation of gentlemen,) never to indulge in meditations upon past injury, much less to exercise their prophetic eye upon future aggression. Ill-humour gives contingent evils such a marvellous appearance of certainty, that we seldom think it unjust to punish them as if already committed.