You are naturally nervous and timid, and this is merely a poor, cowardly conceit that has got into your head; but your own good sense will soon show you the folly of yielding to a mere fancy.

Amuse yourself on the spinet, and play some brisk music that will cheer your spirits; it is nothing but the spleen." Woodward, in the meantime, having effected his object, and satisfied himself of his power over Alice, pursued his way home in high spirits.
To his utter astonishment, however, he found the family in an uproar, the cause of which we will explain.

His mother, whose temper neither she herself nor any other human being, unless her husband, when provoked too far, could keep under anything like decent restraint, had got into a passion, while he, Woodward, was making his visit; and while in a blaze of resentment against the Goodwins she disclosed the secret of his rejection by Alice, and dwelt with bitter indignation upon the attachment she had avowed for Charles--a secret which Henry had most dishonorably intrusted to her, but which, as the reader sees, she had neither temper nor principle to keep.
On entering the house he found his; mother and step-father at high feud.
The I brows of the latter were knit, as was always the case when he found himself bent upon mischief.

He was calm, however, which was another bad sign, for in him the old adage was completely reversed, "After a storm comes a calm," whilst in his case it uniformly preceded it.
Woodward looked about him with amazement; his step-father was standing with his back to the parlor fire, holding the skirts of his coat divided behind, whilst his wife stood opposite to him, her naturally red face still naming more deeply with a tornado of indignation.
"And you dare to tell me that you'll consent to Charles's marriage with her ?" "Yes, my dear, I dare to tell you so.

You have no objection that she should marry your son Harry there.