On behalf of Sir Willoughby, it is to be said that his mother, without infringing on the degree of respect for his decisions and sentiments exacted by him, had talked to him of Miss Middleton, suggesting a volatility of temperament in the young lady that struck him as consentaneous with Mrs Mountstuart’s “rogue in porcelain”, and alarmed him as the independent observations of two world-wise women.  Nor was it incumbent upon him personally to credit the volatility in order, as far as he could, to effect the soul-insurance of his bride, that he might hold the security of the policy.  The desire for it was in him; his mother had merely tolled a warning bell that he had put in motion before.  Clara was not a Constantia.  But she was a woman, and he had been deceived by women, as a man fostering his high ideal of them will surely be.  The strain he adopted was quite natural to his passion and his theme.  The language of the primitive sentiments of men is of the same expression at all times, minus the primitive colours when a modern gentleman addresses his lady.

Lady Patterne died in the winter season of the new year.  In April Dr Middleton had to quit Upton Park, and he had not found a place of residence, nor did he quite know what to do with himself in the prospect of his daughter’s marriage and desertion of him.  Sir Willoughby proposed to find him a house within a circuit of the neighbourhood of Patterne.  Moreover, he invited the Rev. Doctor and his daughter to come to Patterne from Upton for a month, and make acquaintance with his aunts, the ladies Eleanor and Isabel Patterne, so that it might not be so strange to Clara to have them as her housemates after her marriage.  Dr. Middleton omitted to consult his daughter before accepting the invitation, and it appeared, when he did speak to her, that it should have been done.  But she said, mildly, “Very well, papa.”

Sir Willoughby had to visit the metropolis and an estate in another county, whence he wrote to his betrothed daily.  He returned to Patterne in time to arrange for the welcome of his guests; too late, however, to ride over to them; and, meanwhile, during his absence, Miss Middleton had bethought herself that she ought to have given her last days of freedom to her friends.  After the weeks to be passed at Patterne, very few weeks were left to her, and she had a wish to run to Switzerland or Tyrol and see the Alps; a quaint idea, her father thought.  She repeated it seriously, and Dr. Middleton perceived a feminine shuttle of indecision at work in her head, frightful to him, considering that they signified hesitation between the excellent library and capital wine-cellar of Patterne Hall, together with the society of that promising young scholar, Mr. Vernon Whitford, on the one side, and a career of hotels—­equivalent to being rammed into monster artillery with a crowd every night, and shot off on a day’s journey through space every morning—­on the other.

“You will have your travelling and your Alps after the ceremony,” he said.