"Excuse
my intrusion, Eliza," said she. "I thought I would just step in and ask
you if you have passed a pleasant day."
"Perfectly so, madam; and I have now retired to protract the enjoyment
by recollection." "What, my dear, is your opinion of our favorite, Mr.
Boyer?" "Declaring him your favorite, madam, is sufficient to render me
partial to him; but to be frank, independent of that, I think him an
agreeable man." "Your heart, I presume, is now free." "Yes, and I hope
it will long remain so." "Your friends, my dear, solicitous for your
welfare, wish to see you suitably and agreeably connected." "I hope my
friends will never again interpose in my concerns of that nature. You,
madam, who have ever known my heart, are sensible that, had the
Almighty spared life in a certain instance, I must have sacrificed my
own happiness or incurred their censure. I am young, gay, volatile. A
melancholy event has lately extricated me from those shackles which
parental authority had imposed on my mind. Let me, then, enjoy that
freedom which I so highly prize. Let me have opportunity, unbiased by
opinion, to gratify my natural disposition in a participation of those
pleasures which youth and innocence afford." "Of such pleasures, no one,
my dear, would wish to deprive you; but beware, Eliza! Though strewed
with flowers, when contemplated by your lively imagination, it is, after
all, a slippery, thorny path.
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