I am in yours and your
lord's power. The same uncertainty, from the same unhappy cause, leaves
me not the thought, because not the power, of determination. The
recovery of Lady Clementina and her brother, without a view to my own
interest, fills up, at present, all the wishes of my heart.
Let me ask, said the lady, (it is for my own private satisfaction,) Were
such a happy event, as to Clementina, to take place, could you, would
you, think yourself bound by your former offers?
When I made those offers, madam, the situation on your side was the same
that it is now: Lady Clementina was unhappy in her mind. My fortune, it
is true, is higher: it is, indeed, as high as I wish it to be. I then
declared, that if you would give me your Clementina, without insisting on
one hard, on one indispensable article, I would renounce her fortune, and
trust to my father's goodness to me for a provision. Shall my accession
to the estate of my ancestors alter me?--No, madam: I never yet made an
offer, that I receded from, the circumstances continuing the same. If,
in the article of residence, the marquis, and you, and Clementina, would
relax; I would acknowledge myself indebted to your goodness; but without
conditioning for it.
I told you, said she, that I put this question only for my own private
satisfaction: and I told you truth. I never will deceive or mislead you.
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