And this I said, not at all imagining that they would put upon my words the interpretation they did, for they supposed my letter wrote in the natural impatience of a lover made angry by some delay in the realising his hopes, and took it to mean that my marriage was but postponed for a season, and must take place at some time. And this wan’t all, for I took the occasion of Captain Freeman’s carrying his ship home to send by him a considerable sum of money out of my savings to Mr Sternhold, desiring him to place it out at interest in such way as he thought best for my cousin’s benefit, leaving her to believe, if so it might be, that ’twas some provision that my father had been able to make for her. But Dorothy, scenting a plot through some chance word let slip by my good friend, did, as I heard afterwards, demand to know the whole truth of the matter, and so refused altogether to touch the money (which I had designed as a portion for her, whether she married or remained a maid, that so she might not have the pain to find herself depending on me, the man that had rejected her), desiring Mr Sternhold to apply the whole sum to the partial releasing of the estate from its burdens. All which was wrote to me in due time by Mr Sternhold, he being in some trouble of spirit touching it. Now in that I was eager to spare my cousin all the humiliation in my power, providing for her as though she had been my own sister, you may see cause to commend me, but so unalterably fixed did I deem my resolution never to wed her, that I considered it needful to impress her once again with the same, and this I did, as now seems to me, in the rudest and most churlish manner imaginable. For when I writ to Mr Sternhold my answer, having first desired him to request of my cousin, as an especial favour granted to myself, to continue dwelling in the Hall, and to retain in her service Mrs Skipwith and a sufficient quantity of servants, and had begged of him to furnish her, out of my moneys in his hands, with a convenient allowance for the maintenance of herself and the household, I ended my letter thus:-- Have the Goodness, Sir, to make my most respectfull Compliments to Mrs _Brandon_, and acquaint her from me of my desire--viz., that should she hereafter receive any Proposition of Marryage that may at the same time be agreeable to herself, and such as is sanction’d, Sir, by you, she shall at once intertayn and accept the same, assur’d of the Approvall and Consent of her loving Cosin and Gardien, Ed. Carlyon. As much as to say, _Warn her that Mr Carlyon is beyond her reach, and that if she can assure herself of another match, ’twill be well for her to accept of it, while she is yet young and handsome!_