“But, sir, however lucky I should be in possessing Miss Armsworth’s heart, what reason have I to suppose that I do so?  I never spoke a word to her.  I needn’t say that she never did to me—­which—­”

“Of course she didn’t, and of course you didn’t.  Should like to have seen you making love to my daughter, indeed!  No, sir; it’s my will and pleasure.  I’ve settled it, and done it shall be!  I shall go home and tell Mary, and she’ll obey me—­I should like to see her do anything else!  Hoity, toity, fathers must be masters, sir! even in these fly-away new times, when young ones choose their own husbands, and their own politics, and their own hounds, and their own religion too, and be hanged to them!”

What did this unaccustomed bit of bluster mean? for unaccustomed it was; and Tom knew well that Mary Armsworth had her own way, and managed her father as completely as he managed Whitbury.

“Humph!  It is impossible; and yet it must be.  This explains his being so anxious that Lord Minchampstead should approve of me.  I have found favour in the poor dear thing’s eyes, I suppose:  and the good old fellow knows it, and won’t betray her, and so shams tyrant.  Just like him!” But—­that Mary Armsworth should care for him!  Vain fellow that he was to fancy it!  And yet, when he began to put things together, little silences, little looks, little nothings, which all together might make something.  He would not slander her to himself by supposing that her attentions to his father were paid for his sake:  but he could not forget that it was she, always, who read his letters aloud to the old man:  or that she had taken home and copied out the story of his shipwreck.  Beside, it was the only method of explaining Mark’s conduct, save on the supposition that he had suddenly been “changed by the fairies” in his old age, instead of in the cradle, as usual.

It was a terrible temptation; and to no man more than to Thomas Thurnall.  He was no boy, to hanker after mere animal beauty; he had no delicate visions or lofty aspirations; and he knew (no man better) the plain English of fifty thousand pounds, and Mark Armsworth’s daughter—­a good house, a good consulting practice (for he would take his M.D. of course), a good station in the county, a good clarence with a good pair of horses, good plate, a good dinner with good company thereat; and, over and above all, his father to live with him; and with Mary, whom he loved as a daughter, in luxury and peace to his life’s end.—­Why, it was all that he had ever dreamed of, three times more than he ever hoped to gain!—­Not to mention (for how oddly little dreams of selfish pleasure slip in at such moments!)—­that he would buy such a Ross’s microscope! and keep such a horse for a sly by-day with the Whitford Priors!  Oh, to see once again a fox break from Coldharbour gorse!