Chapter II.

_Which ends with a very unfavourable prediction for our heroine._

As soon as they were seated in the coach, she did not fail to call upon him to perform his promise: but Mr. Glanville, excessively out of humour at her exposing herself in the gardens, replied, without considering whether he should not offend her, that he knew no more of the disguised lady than any body else in the place.

How, sir! replied Arabella, did you not promise to relate her adventures to me? And would you have me believe you knew no more of them than the rest of the cavaliers and ladies in the place?

Upon my soul, I don't, madam, said Glanville: yet what I know of her is sufficient to let me understand she was not worth the consideration you seemed to have for her.

She cannot sure be more indiscreet than the fair and unfortunate Hermione, replied Arabella; who like her put on man's apparel, through despair at the ill success of her passion for Alexander--And certain it is, that though the beautiful Hermione was guilty of one great error which lost her the esteem of Alexander, yet she had a high and noble soul; as was manifest by her behaviour and words when she was run through by the sword of Demetrius. Oh! death, cried she, as she was falling, how sweet do I find thee, and how much and how earnestly have I desired thee!

Oh Lord! Oh Lord! cried Mr. Glanville, hardly sensible of what he said, was there ever any thing so intolerable!

You pity the unhappy Hermione, sir? said Arabella, interpreting his exclamation her own way. Indeed, she is well worthy of your compassion. And if the bare recital of the words she uttered at receiving her death's wound affects you so much, you may guess what would have been your agonies, had you been Demetrius that gave it to her.

Here Mr. Glanville groaning aloud through impatience at her absurdities----

This subject affects you deeply, I perceive, said Arabella. There is no question but you would have acted in the same circumstance as Demetrius did: yet let me tell you, the extravagancy of his rage and despair for what he had innocently committed, was imputed to him as a great imbecility, as was also the violent passion he conceived soon after for the fair Deidamia. You know the accident which brought that fair princess into his way.

Indeed I do not, madam, said Glanville, peevishly.

Well, then I'll tell you, said Arabella; but, pausing a little:

The recital I have engaged myself to make, added she, will necessarily take up some hours' time, as upon reflection I have found: so if you will dispense with my beginning it at present, I will satisfy your curiosity to-morrow, when I may be able to pursue it without interruption.

To this Mr. Glanville made no other answer than a bow with his head; and the coach a few moments after arriving at their own house, he led her to her apartment, firmly resolved never to attend her to any more public places while she continued in the same ridiculous folly.

Sir Charles, who had several times been in doubt whether Arabella was not really disordered in her senses; upon Miss Glanville's account of her behaviour at the gardens, concluded she was absolutely mad, and held a short debate with himself, whether he ought not to bring a commission of lunacy against her, rather than marry her to his son, whom he was persuaded could never be happy with a wife so unaccountably absurd. Though he only hinted at this to Mr. Glanville, in a conversation he had with him while his dissatisfaction was at its height, concerning Arabella, yet the bare supposition that his father ever thought of such a thing, threw the young gentleman into such agonies, that Sir Charles, to compose him, protested he would do nothing in relation to his niece that he would not approve of. Yet he expostulated with him on the absurdity of her behaviour, and the ridicule to which she exposed herself wherever she went; appealing to him, whether in a wife he could think those follies supportable, which in a mistress occasioned him so much confusion.

Mr. Glanville, as much in love as he was, felt all the force of this inference, and acknowledged to his father, that he could not think of marrying Arabella, till the whims her romances had put into her head, were erased by a better knowledge of life and manners. But he added with a sigh, that he knew not how this reformation would be effected; for she had such a strange facility in reconciling every incident to her own fantastic ideas, that every new object added strength to the fatal deception she laboured under.