This woman, sometimes under the pretence of friendship, and sometimes with open malice, informed Emily, from time to time, of the preparations that were making for her marriage.

One day, "the squire had rode over to look at a neat little farm which was destined for the habitation of the new-married couple;" and at another, "a quantity of live stock and household furniture was procured, that every thing might be ready for their reception." She then told her "of a licence that was bought, a parson in readiness, and a day fixed for the nuptials." When Emily endeavoured, though with increased misgivings, to ridicule these proceedings as absolutely nugatory without her consent, her artful gouvernante related several stories of forced marriages, and assured her that neither protestations, nor silence, nor fainting, would be of any avail, either to suspend the ceremony, or to set it aside when performed.
The situation of Miss Melville was in an eminent degree pitiable.

She had no intercourse but with her persecutors.

She had not a human being with whom to consult, who might afford her the smallest degree of consolation and encouragement.

She had fortitude; but it was neither confirmed nor directed by the dictates of experience.