He asked if I should like to ride a-cockhorse there with
him. 'Dearly,' I said, and then he laughed and said it was not my
turn, but he should take Miss Aurelia instead."
Aurelia laughed, and Harriet said, "Extremely impudent."
Little she guessed what Betty was at that moment reading.
"I am astonished," wrote Lady Belamour to her cousin, "that you
should decline so highly advantageous an Offer for your Daughter.
I can only understand it as a Token that you desire no further
Connection with, nor Favour from me; and I shall therefore require
of you to give up the Accounts, and vacate the House by Michaelmas
next ensuing. However, as I am willing to allow some excuse for the
Weakness of parental Affection, if you change your Mind within the
next Week and send up your Daughter with Dove and his Wife, I will
overlook your first hasty and foolish Refusal, ungrateful as it was,
and will receive your Daughter and give her all the Advantages I
promised. Otherwise your Employment is at an end, and you had
better prepare your Accounts for Hargrave's Inspection."
"There is no help for it then," said Betty.
"And if it be for the child's advantage, we need not make our moan,"
said her father. "'Tis like losing the daylight out of our house,
but we must not stand in the way of her good.
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