should’st be prepared for the worst: thy father is a good man, as good as ever stepped, but he has his fancies; and he is resolved to give thee to none but a hunter: he has set his heart upon it; and he’ll not go from his word; I know him too well.”
Katharine wept, and avowed her determination to die sooner than to part from her William. Her mother comforted and scolded her by turns, and at length ended by joining her tears to her daughter’s. She was promising to make one more assault of a most vigorous kind upon the old forester’s heart, when a knock was heard at the door—and in stepped William.—“Ah William!”—exclaimed Katharine going up to him with streaming eyes,—“we must part: seek some other sweetheart: me you must never marry; father is resolved to give me to Robert, because he is a huntsman; and my mother can do nothing for us. But, if I am to part from you, never think that I will belong to any body else: to my dying day, dear William, I will remain faithful to you.”
