“Oh, because _I couldn’t help it_! How could I help your coming here—how can I help this aversion I feel—pardon me if I have expressed it strongly. I have a high respect for you, and I ought to feel honored by your preference—any woman in the parish would. You are too good—too wise for me, believe me you are! I am a child—a fool! Oh! don’t think of it! _pray_ don’t think of it! Consider how many ladies—ladies of family and fortune—would be proud to wed the minister; who would throw himself away upon a poor, lone girl, without connexions, and without influence!” Sophie had risen in her earnestness, and stood before him with her clasped hands. He closed his eyes and smiled; he stretched forth his hand, and taking hers, drew her again to her seat, and passed his arm around her waist and whispered— “My little Sophie, my little fawn, you shall be Mrs. Withers in three weeks, just as sure as you live!” She shrank from the clasp of his arm, as though it had been the clammy coil of a serpent. “I will not! cannot! durst not! Mr. Withers, why don’t you marry Rose Green? She would have you; or Mrs. Somerville, or Mrs. Slye, or Mrs. Joshua Eversham, or Miss Polly Mortimer—any of them would have, would be proud to marry the minister of the parish.” “I know that, Miss Churchill!” “And any of these ladies would make you a good wife.” “I do not doubt it, Miss Churchill.” “Then why don’t you marry one of them?” “Because they are each ready to fall into my arms.” Sophie was wounded and became silent—she attempted to withdraw herself from the embrace of his arm, but every attempt was punished by a tighter fold. “Miss Churchill, do you know that there is an instinct in human nature—to speak more correctly, in _man’s_ nature, or in speaking _most_ correctly, perhaps I should say in _my own_ nature—to pursue that which _flies_? Why, Sophie, when I was a lad, I always preferred to play with kittens that were scarey and spiteful, that would kick, scratch, and bite, that would resist to the death rather than with one that would cosily and quietly nestle down in my lap—the latter I should have shaken off.” “But how,” said Sophie, “if the poor kitten neither resisted nor caressed you—shrank and shivered and died in your hands?” “I should not give the weak thing a chance, Sophie; when the shrinking and shivering commenced, I should throw it heavily upon the ground, and thereby kill it.” Sophie shuddered. Both were silent for some time; then he spoke— “What day, Miss Churchill, between this and the first of next month will it please you to bestow upon me the honor of your hand?” “No day! no day! Don’t look at me so, Mr. Withers, pray don’t; it makes me ill—_pray don’t_—I am a mere girl, a mere child; it frightens me, this idea of marrying you—indeed, believe me, it does!”