“If,” said his lordship awfully, “you fancy that that is a funny thing to say, let me tell you that it is not!”

“No, Papa.”

He eyed her in uncertainty, feeling that in some strange way she was eluding him. She had always been an obedient, even a meek, daughter, but he had several times suffered from the uncomfortable suspicion that behind the cloud of gentle compliance there existed a woman who was quite unknown to him. He saw that it behoved him to tread warily, so he curbed his exasperation, and said, with a very fair assumption of paternal solicitude: “Now, what maggot has got into your head, my dear? You won’t tell me you don’t wish to be married, for every female must wish that!”

“Yes, indeed!” she sighed.

“Can it be that you dislike Ludlow?”

“No, Papa.”

“Well, I was sure of that! I daresay there isn’t a better liked man in England, and as for you ladies—I The caps that have been set at him! You will be the envy of every unmarried woman in town!”

“Do you think so indeed, Papa? How delightful that would be! But perhaps I might feel strange, and unlike myself. It wouldn’t be comfortable, not to be acquainted with myself.”

This baffling, and (he considered) very nonsensical observation, threw him out of his stride, but he persevered, saying with as much patience as he could command: “Well, never mind that! To be sure, I never thought he was trying to fix your interest, but I am sure I have seen him stand up with you at balls a hundred times! Ay, and sit talking to you, when one might have supposed that he would have been making up to one of the beauties that have been hanging out lures to him for ever!”

“He is very civil,” she agreed. “He was used to talk to me of Clarissa, because I knew her too, and no one else would ever mention her name within his hearing.”