g to be married."

"Going to what?"

"Going to be married, papa. That is, if I have your leave. Of course
any offer of that kind that I have accepted is subject to your
approval."

"And I have been told nothing about it!"

"It began at Perivale, and I could not tell you then. You do not ask
me who is to be my husband."

"It is not Will Belton?"

"Poor Will! No; it is not Will. It is Frederic Aylmer. I think you
would prefer him as a son-in-law even to my cousin Will."

"No I shouldn't. Why should I prefer a man whom I don't even know,
who lives in London, and who will take you away, so that I shall
never see you again?"

"Dear papa;--don't speak of it in that way. I thought you would be
glad to know that I was to be so--so--so happy!"

"But why is it to be done this way,--of a sudden? Why didn't he come
to me? Will came to me the very first thing."

"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, pig-headed 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,
b