第746页 / 共817页

"The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their

infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the

favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their

cradles we planned the union; and now, at the moment when the

wishes of both sisters would be accomplished, is their marriage

to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no

importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family? Do

you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends--to his tacit

engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of

propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his

earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?"