I now keenly felt the unreasonableness of my father's
conduct in placing me to reside with a family, with all the members of
which, with one exception, he was wholly unacquainted, and I bitterly
felt the helplessness of my situation. I determined, however, in the
event of my cousin's persevering in his addresses, to lay all the
particulars before my uncle, although he had never, in kindness or
intimacy, gone a step beyond our first interview, and to throw myself
upon his hospitality and his sense of honour for protection against a
repetition of such annoyances.
My cousin's conduct may appear to have been an inadequate cause for
such serious uneasiness; but my alarm was awakened neither by his acts
nor by words, but entirely by his manner, which was strange and even
intimidating. At the beginning of our yesterday's interview, there was
a sort of bullying swagger in his air, which, towards the end,
gave place to something bordering upon the brutal vehemence of an
undisguised ruffian, a transition which had tempted me into a belief
that he might seek, even forcibly, to extort from me a consent to his
wishes, or by means still more horrible, of which I scarcely dared to
trust myself to think, to possess himself of my property.
I was early next day summoned to attend my uncle in his private
room, which lay in a corner turret of the old building; and thither
I accordingly went, wondering all the way what this unusual measure
might prelude.
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