I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks.

Can I trust your assertion, Isabella?
Are you sure you hate me?
If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again?
I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed.

But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it.

She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness.

The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself.