Wilfrid’s reply stated that he considered it unadviseable that he should add his voice to the request, for the present.

The ladies submitted to this quietly until they heard from their father one evening at dinner that he had seen Wilfrid in the city.

“He doesn’t waste his time like some young people I know,” said Mr. Pole, with a wink.

“Papa; is it possible?” cried Adela.

“Everything’s possible, my dear.”

“Lady Charlotte?”

“There is a Lady Charlotte.”

“Who would be Lady Charlotte still, whatever occurred!”

Mr. Pole laughed.  “No, no.  You get nothing out of me.  All I say is, be practical.  The sun isn’t always shining.”

He appeared to be elated with some secret good news.

“Have you been over to Besworth, the last two or three days?” he asked.

The ladies smiled radiantly, acknowledging Wilfrid’s wonderful persuasive powers, in their hearts.

“No, papa; we have not been,” said Adela.  “We are always anxious to go, as I think you know.”

The merchant chirped over his glass.  “Well, well!  There’s a way.”

“Straight?”

“Over a gate; ha, ha!”

His gaiety would have been perplexing, but for the allusion to Lady Charlotte.

The sisters, in their unfailing midnight consultation, persuaded one another that Wilfrid had become engaged to that lady.  They wrote forthwith Fine Shades to him on the subject.  His answer was Boeotian, and all about Besworth.  “Press it now,” he said, “if you really want it.  The iron is hot.  And above all things, let me beg you not to be inconsiderate to the squire, when he and I are doing all we can for you.  I mean, we are bound to consider him, if there should happen to be anything he wishes us to do.”

What could the word ‘inconsiderate’ imply?  The ladies were unable to summon an idea to solve it.  They were sure that no daughters could be more perfectly considerate and ready to sacrifice everything to their father.  In the end, they deputed the volunteering Adela to sit with him in the library, and put the question of Besworth decisively, in the name of all.  They, meantime, who had a contempt for sleep, waited aloft to hold debate over the result of the interview.

An hour after midnight, Adela came to them, looking pale and uncertain:  her curls seeming to drip, and her blue eyes wandering about the room, as if she had seen a thing that kept her in a quiver between belief and doubt.

The two ladies drew near to her, expressing no verbal impatience, from which the habit of government and great views naturally saved them, but singularly curious.

Adela’s first exclamation:  “I wish I had not gone,” alarmed them.

“Has any change come to papa?” breathed Arabella.

Cornelia smiled.  “Do you not know him too well?”

An acute glance from Adela made her ask whether Besworth was to be surrendered.