In
that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to
her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her,
before I drew her settlement, would become something like a
downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to
writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides
by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir
Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay.
He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request
immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her
that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left
Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss
Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not
come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was
the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a
little annoyed when he heard of it.
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss
Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and
came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the
resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I
had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot.
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