“To invigorate the poetry of nature, Mr. Whitford.”

“Then you maintain, sir, that when faith is broken by one, the engagement ceases, and the other is absolutely free?”

“I do; I am the champion of that platitude, and sound that knell to the sentimental world; and since you have chosen to defend it, I will appeal to Willoughby, and ask him if he would not side with the world of good sense in applauding the nuptials of man or maid married within a month of a jilting?” Clara slipped her arm under her father’s.

“Poetry, sir,” said Willoughby, “I never have been hypocrite enough to pretend to understand or care for.”

Dr. Middleton laughed.  Vernon too seemed to admire his cousin for a reply that rung in Clara’s ears as the dullest ever spoken.  Her arm grew cold on her father’s.  She began to fear Willoughby again.

He depended entirely on his agility to elude the thrusts that assailed him.  Had he been able to believe in the treachery of the Powers above, he would at once have seen design in these deadly strokes, for his feelings had rarely been more acute than at the present crisis; and he would then have led away Clara, to wrangle it out with her, relying on Vernon’s friendliness not to betray him to her father:  but a wrangle with Clara promised no immediate fruits, nothing agreeable; and the lifelong trust he had reposed in his protecting genii obscured his intelligence to evidence he would otherwise have accepted on the spot, on the faith of his delicate susceptibility to the mildest impressions which wounded him.  Clara might have stooped to listen at the door:  she might have heard sufficient to create a suspicion.  But Vernon was not in the house last night; she could not have communicated it to him, and he had not seen Laetitia, who was, besides trustworthy, an admirable if a foolish and ill-fated woman.

Preferring to consider Vernon a pragmatical moralist played upon by a sententious drone, he thought it politic to detach them, and vanquish Clara while she was in the beaten mood, as she had appeared before Vernon’s vexatious arrival.

“I’m afraid, my dear fellow, you are rather too dainty and fussy for a very successful wooer,” he said.  “It’s beautiful on paper, and absurd in life.  We have a bit of private business to discuss.  We will go inside, sir, I think.  I will soon release you.”  Clara pressed her father’s arm.

“More?” said he.

“Five minutes.  There’s a slight delusion to clear, sir.  My dear Clara, you will see with different eyes.”

“Papa wishes to work with Mr. Whitford.”

Her heart sunk to hear her father say:  “No, ’tis a lost morning.  I must consent to pay tax of it for giving another young woman to the world.  I have a daughter!  You will, I hope, compensate me, Mr. Whitford, in the afternoon.  Be not downcast.  I have observed you meditative of late.  You will have no clear brain so long as that stuff is on the mind.  I could venture to propose to do some pleading for you, should it be needed for the prompter expedition of the affair.”