"I need not, I suppose, caution you against the danger of cultivating too closely the friendship of Miss Vernon;--you are a man of the world, and know how far you can indulge yourself in her society with safety to yourself, and justice to her.

But I warn you, that, considering her ardent temper, you must let your experience keep guard over her as well as yourself, for the specimen of yesterday may serve to show her extreme thoughtlessness and neglect of decorum." There was something, I was sensible, of truth, as well as good sense, in all this; it seemed to be given as a friendly warning, and I had no right to take it amiss; yet I felt I could with pleasure have run Rashleigh Osbaldistone through the body all the time he was speaking.
"The deuce take his insolence!" was my internal meditation.

"Would he wish me to infer that Miss Vernon had fallen in love with that hatchet-face of his, and become degraded so low as to require his shyness to cure her of an imprudent passion?
I will have his meaning from him," was my resolution, "if I should drag it out with cart-ropes." For this purpose, I placed my temper under as accurate a guard as I could, and observed, "That, for a lady of her good sense and acquired accomplishments, it was to be regretted that Miss Vernon's manners were rather blunt and rustic." "Frank and unreserved, at least, to the extreme," replied Rashleigh: "yet, trust me, she has an excellent heart.

To tell you the truth, should she continue her extreme aversion to the cloister, and to her destined husband, and should my own labours in the mine of Plutus promise to secure me a decent independence, I shall think of reviewing our acquaintance and sharing it with Miss Vernon." "With all his fine voice, and well-turned periods," thought I, "this same Rashleigh Osbaldistone is the ugliest and most conceited coxcomb I ever met with!" "But," continued Rashleigh, as if thinking aloud, "I should not like to supplant Thorncliff." "Supplant Thorncliff!--Is your brother Thorncliff," I inquired, with great surprise, "the destined husband of Diana Vernon ?" "Why, ay, her father's commands, and a certain family-contract, destined her to marry one of Sir Hildebrand's sons.

A dispensation has been obtained from Rome to Diana Vernon to marry _Blank_ Osbaldistone, Esq., son of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, of Osbaldistone Hall, Bart., and so forth; and it only remains to pitch upon the happy man whose name shall fill the gap in the manuscript.