’He couldn’t come all the way to Belton very well particularly as he does not know you.’

‘Will came here.’

’Oh, papa, don’t make difficulties.  Of course that was different.  He was here when he first thought of it.  And even then he didn’t think very much about it.’

‘He did all that he could, I suppose?’

‘Well yes.  I don’t know how that might be.’  And Clara almost laughed as she felt the difficulties into which she was creeping.  ’Dear Will.  He is much better as a cousin than as a husband.’

’I don’t see that at all.  Captain Aylmer will not have the Belton estate or Plaistow Hall.’

’Surely he is well enough off to take care of a wife.  He will have the whole of the Perivale estate, you know.’

’I don’t know anything about it.  According to my ideas of what is proper he should have spoken to me first.  If he could not come he might have written.  No doubt my ideas may be old-fashioned, and I’m told that Captain Aylmer is a fashionable young man.’

‘Indeed he is not, papa.  He is a hard-working Member of Parliament.’

’I don’t know that he is any better for that.  People seem to think that if a man is a Member of Parliament he may do what he pleases.  There is Thompson, the Member for Minehead, who has bought some sort of place out by the moors.  I never saw so vulgar, pigheaded a fellow in my life.  Being in Parliament used to be something when I was young, but it won’t make a man a gentleman now-a-days.  It seems to me that none but brewers, and tallow-chandlers, and lawyers go into Parliament now.  Will Belton could go into Parliament if he pleased, but he knows better than that.  He won’t make himself such a fool.’

This was not comfortable to Clara; but she knew her father, and allowed him to go on with his grumbling.  He would come round by degrees, and he would appreciate, if he could not be induced to acknowledge, the wisdom of the step she was about to take.

‘When is it to be?’ he asked.

‘Nothing of that kind has ever been mentioned, papa.’

‘It had better be soon, if I am to have anything to do with it.’  Now it was certainly the case that the old man was very ill.  He had not been out of the house since Clara had returned home; and, though he was always grumbling about his food, he could hardly be induced to eat anything when the morsels for which he expressed a wish were got for him.

‘Of course you will be consulted, papa, before anything is settled.’

‘I don’t want to be in anybody’s way, my dear.’

’And may I tell Frederic that you have given your consent?

’What’s the use of my consenting or not consenting?  If you had been anxious to oblige me you would have taken your Cousin Will.’

‘Oh, papa, how could I accept a man I didn’t love?’

’You seemed to me to be very fond of him at first; and I must say, I thought he was ill-treated.’