She ventured to seek her uncle when he was alone in the dining-room, and to tell him plainly, “Uncle Godwin, I am sorry to plague you, but I will not marry Squire Trevor.” For his answer, Mr. Godwin raised his eyebrows, and having nearly demolished Lady Bell by this simple operation, and its supercilious reception of her declaration of war, he proceeded further to annihilate her. “My Lady Bell, let me ask you, and forgive me for the indelicacy of the question, have you any means of subsistence except what I grant you?” “No, sir,” answered Lady Bell, faint and low at the home-thrust; and she was not able to tell her uncle, because in the annals of her rank she had not yet heard of such an enterprise, and was ignorant how to set about it, that she would no longer be indebted to his bounty—she would go forth and earn her own bread, or perish without it, but she would not barter herself, for the sake of his making a better bargain in the sale of an unentailed fragment of his estate, or that he might be permanently rid of the burden of her maintenance. It would not have mattered although Lady Bell had done so, for Squire Godwin would only have mocked her merrily and reminded her, that as she was an old lady of not more than fifteen, he was her lawful guardian, and could raise the country in pursuit of her, could drag her into a public court in order to have her shamed, rebuked, and restored to his natural keeping. But all that Lady Bell said was, “No, sir,” with bitter humiliation. “Then I have the honour to tell you, madam,” Squire Godwin continued with the utmost calmness, “that I am a ruined man, and can no longer afford to support you. On that and every other account I hasten to accept so unexceptionable an establishment for you as a marriage with Squire Trevor will secure. Therefore, my niece, I beg to hear no more idle objections, unless you are prepared to show a better right to make them.” The Squire turned on his heel and drummed with his fingers on the chimney-piece. Lady Bell turned also, and ran tottering from the room. She felt her confidence ebbing away; her sense of right and wrong grew hopelessly confused; her perplexity, despondency, and despair of escape became more than she could bear. At last an accident and Lady Bell’s own lively impulse put an end to the struggle. One of the executions of which Mrs. Die had spoken to Lady Bell on her first day at St. Bevis’s, was put into the house. Bailiffs with writs turning up unexpectedly one morning, and not doing their spiriting gently, did not compose Lady Bell’s shaken nerves, though it must be owned that Mr. Godwin and Mrs. Die took the visitation with great equanimity, and did not even disturb themselves on account of the presence of Mr. Trevor, but left it to his swagger to be exceedingly aggrieved by the disagreeable interruption to his wooing.