On this subject it was quite impossible that Belton should say anything.  Clara was standing by him, and she, as he knew, was engaged to Captain Aylmer.  So circumstanced, what could he say as to Clara’s settlement in life?  That something should be said between him and the old man, and something also between him and Clara, was a matter of course; but it was quite out of the question that he should discuss Clara’s prospects in life in presence of them both together.

‘Papa’s illness makes him a little melancholy,’ said Clara.

‘Of course of course.  It always does,’ said Will.

‘I think he will be better when the weather becomes milder,’ said Clara.

‘I suppose I may be allowed to know how I feel myself,’ said the squire.  ’But don’t keep Will up here when he wants his dinner.  There; that’ll do.  You’d better leave me now.’  Then Will went out to his old room, and a quarter of an hour afterwards he found himself seated with Clara at the dinner- table; and a quarter of an hour after that the dinner was over, and they had both drawn their chairs to the fire.

Neither of them knew how to begin with the other.  Clara was under no obligation to declare her engagement to her cousin, but yet she felt that it would be unhandsome in her not to do so.  Had Will never made the mistake of wanting to marry her himself, she would have done so as a matter of course.  Had she supposed him to cherish any intention of renewing that mistake she would have felt herself bound to tell him so that he might save himself from unnecessary pain.  But she gave him credit for no such intention, and yet she could not but remember that scene among the rocks.  And then was she, or was she not, to say anything to him about the Askertons?  With him also the difficulty was as great.  He did not in truth believe that the tidings which he had heard from his friend the lawyer required corroboration; but yet it was necessary that he should know from herself that she had disposed of her hand and it was necessary also that he should say some word to her as to their future standing and friendship.

‘You must be very anxious to see how your farm goes on,’ said she.

He had not thought much of his agricultural venture at Belton for the last three or four days, and would hardly have been vexed had he been told that every head of cattle about the place had died of the murrain.  Some general idea of the expediency of going on with a thing which he had commenced still actuated him; but it was the principle involved, and not the speculation itself, which interested him.  But he could not explain all this, and he therefore was driven to some cold agreement with her.  ’The farm! you mean the stock.  Yes; I shall go and have a look at them early tomorrow.  I suppose they’re all alive.’

‘Pudge says that they are doing uncommonly well.’  Pudge was a leading man among the Belton labourers, whom Will had hired to look after his concerns.