These discouragements, however, did not hinder me from indulging my wishes. My father's tenderness was the foundation on which I built my hopes. I told Mr Vere the designs of one parent, and the kind condescension of the other. Emboldened by this information, he ventured to disclose his love to my father, begging his interest with my mother in his favour. He had a great kindness for the youth, and was so fond of me, that he would readily have consented to my happiness, if the fear of disobliging my mother had not checked him. He represented to her in the mildest manner, the utter dislike I had expressed of the proposed match, and conjured her not to insist on it. My mother, unused to be controuled, was filled with resentment both against him and me; she said, he encouraged me in my disobedience; and that, if he did not unite his authority to hers, in order to compel me to marry the gentleman she approved of, it would make a total breach between them. My good father, who loved my mother exceedingly, was alarmed at this menace. Unwilling to come to extremities either with her or me, he was at a loss how to act. His paternal love at length prevailed, and he determined, at all events, to save me from the violence which he knew would be put upon my heart. My mother had never condescended to talk to me on the subject: she thought my immediate obedience ought to have followed the bare knowlege of her will. She forbad me her sight, and charged me never to appear before her, till I came with a determination to obey her. However severe this prohibition was, I yielded to it with the less reluctance, as my father's tender love made me amends for my mother's harshness. Perhaps, had she vouchsafed to reason a little with me, tempering her arguments with a motherly kindness, she would have found me as flexible as she could wish; but the course she took had a very contrary effect. I thought myself persecuted, and that it was for the honour of my love to persevere. On the other hand, my father's secret indulgence encouraged me in the sentiments I entertained, and I now determined, not only to refuse my old lover, but to have my young one. My mother had given me a stated time in which I was to come to a resolution, and if I did not, at the expiration of it, acquiesce, I was to be pronounced a reprobate, and to be no more considered as her child. In this emergency I had recourse to my father. I told him there was nothing which I was not ready to suffer, rather than marry the man I hated: my greatest affliction was the uneasiness I saw him endure on my account; for my mother reproached him daily with my obstinacy.