"Because of that, I am afraid, Clara."
"Loves me, and goes away because he loves me!" said the girl, bewildered. "I don't understand it."
"There may be many reasons, Clara."
"I can't think of one. Indeed I can't. Papa never was cruel."
"He may not think it quite honorable to let—make you love him, when your father knows nothing about it."
"But papa would not mind."
"Hepworth does not know that; nor do I. Your father is a very proud man, Clara, and has a right to look high, for his only child."
"What then? Mr. Closs is handsomer, brighter, more—more everything that is grand and royal, than any nobleman I have ever seen. What can papa say against that?"
"But he is a man of no family position—simply Hepworth Closs, nothing more. We can scarcely call him an Englishman."
"What then, mamma? He is a gentleman. Who, in all this neighborhood, can compare with him?"