Thus urged and encouraged, I stammered through all the account which Rashleigh had given of her early contract to marry an Osbaldistone, and of the uncertainty and difficulty of her choice; and there I would willingly have paused. But her penetration discovered that there was still something behind, and even guessed to what it related. “Well, it was ill-natured of Rashleigh to tell this tale on me. I am like the poor girl in the fairy tale, who was betrothed in her cradle to the Black Bear of Norway, but complained chiefly of being called Bruin's bride by her companions at school. But besides all this, Rashleigh said something of himself with relation to me--Did he not?” “He certainly hinted, that were it not for the idea of supplanting his brother, he would now, in consequence of his change of profession, be desirous that the word Rashleigh should fill up the blank in the dispensation, instead of the word Thorncliff.” “Ay? indeed?” she replied--“was he so very condescending?--Too much honour for his humble handmaid, Diana Vernon--And she, I suppose, was to be enraptured with joy could such a substitute be effected?” “To confess the truth, he intimated as much, and even farther insinuated”-- “What?--Let me hear it all!” she exclaimed, hastily. “That he had broken off your mutual intimacy, lest it should have given rise to an affection by which his destination to the church would not permit him to profit.” “I am obliged to him for his consideration,” replied Miss Vernon, every feature of her fine countenance taxed to express the most supreme degree of scorn and contempt. She paused a moment, and then said, with her usual composure, “There is but little I have heard from you which I did not expect to hear, and which I ought not to have expected; because, bating one circumstance, it is all very true. But as there are some poisons so active, that a few drops, it is said, will infect a whole fountain, so there is one falsehood in Rashleigh's communication, powerful enough to corrupt the whole well in which Truth herself is said to have dwelt. It is the leading and foul falsehood, that, knowing Rashleigh as I have reason too well to know him, any circumstance on earth could make me think of sharing my lot with him. No,” she continued with a sort of inward shuddering that seemed to express involuntary horror, “any lot rather than that--the sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh:--the convent--the jail--the grave, shall be welcome before them all.”