Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable.

If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable.

But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.

That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain--but I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears.

I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason.