Next to love-making comes
love-winning, and you knew it would come to that, papa.'
The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. 'I know--since you
press me so--I know I did guess some childish attachment might
arise between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent
it; but I have not particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how
can you expect that I should now? It is impossible; no father in
England would hear of such a thing.'
'But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and
how can he be less fit for me than he was before?'
'He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and a little
property; but having neither, he is another man.'
'You inquired nothing about him?'
'I went by Hewby's introduction. He should have told me. So
should the young man himself; of course he should. I consider it
a most dishonourable thing to come into a man's house like a
treacherous I-don't-know-what.'
'But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He
loved me too well to like to run the risk. And as to speaking of
his friends on his first visit, I don't see why he should have
done so at all. He came here on business: it was no affair of
ours who his parents were. And then he knew that if he told you
he would never be asked here, and would perhaps never see me
again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him for trying, by
any means, to stay near me--the girl he loves? All is fair in
love.
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