'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!' The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his scriptural phrase, more than anything I had heard from him before. '_How?_' he continued; 'how has Dudley _insulted_ you, my dear child? Come, you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did not know that Dudley was here.' 'I--he--it _is_ an insult. He knew very well--he _must_ know I dislike him; and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.' 'O--o--oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which plainly said, Is that the mighty matter? He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this time smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance looked to me wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not understand. 'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal proposal of marriage!' 'Yes; he proposed for me.' As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous. My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smiling still, he said-- 'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you don't seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have one faithful friend at least, whom I advise your consulting--I mean your looking-glass. The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant in the world's ways. He is in love--desperately enamoured. Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir. And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too hard on a rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his folly and his pain.' CHAPTER XLIX _AN APPARITION_ 'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him, 'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that the subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won't refuse to hear me,' he said, observing me on the point of protesting. 'I am, of course, assuming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You know in that pleasant play, poor Sheridan--delightful fellow!--all our fine spirits are dead--he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like beginning with a little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course, that is only a joke, yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss Ogle, I _know_, was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few months later, have died rather than not have married him.' I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into silence.