No inference should have been drawn from my father's hasty words, except that, being spoken in anger, they could not convey his permanent sentiments; but I pondered them until I discovered that they clearly foretold my being sacrificed to some ugly, old, vulgar, ignorant, gouty, purse-proud, blinking-eyed, bandy-legged, stock-jobbing animal, with a snuff-coloured coat, a brown wig, and a pen behind his ear. No wonder if the assured prospect of such outrage redoubled mine ire! But it had not yet reached its consummation. At dinner, Miss Arnold happened to mention a public breakfast, to which Lady B---- had invited us for the following morning. My father, who was far from affecting privacy in his injunctions or reproofs, informed me, without circumlocution, that I should go neither to Lady B----'s nor any where else, till I gave him my word of honour that I would have no intercourse with Lord Frederick de Burgh. 'I must stay at home, then,' said I, with an air of surly resolution; 'for there is to be a ball after the breakfast, and I have promised to dance with Lord Frederick.' 'Eat your breakfast at home then, Miss Percy,' said my father; 'and no fear but you shall have as good a one as any Lady B---- in the land.' Great was my disappointment at this sentence; for I had procured for the occasion a dress upon which Lady Maria de Burgh had fixed her heart, when there was no longer time to make another robe with similar embroidery. But my wrath scorned to offer entreaty or compromise; and, leaving the table, I retreated to my chamber, seeking sullen comfort in the thought that I might soon emancipate myself from thraldom. In the course of the evening, however, Miss Arnold, whose influence with my father had of late increased surprizingly, found means to obtain a mitigation of his sentence; but the good humour which might have been restored by this concession, was banished by an angry command to refrain from all such engagements with Lord Frederick for the future. The next morning, while we were at breakfast (for a public breakfast by no means supersedes the necessity of a private one) my father received a letter, which he read with visible discomposure; and, hastily quitting his unfinished meal, immediately left the house. I was somewhat startled by his manner, and Miss Arnold appeared to sympathise still more deeply in his uneasiness; but the hour of dressing approached, and, in that momentous concern, I forgot my father's disquiet.