‘It is a matter I do not choose to discuss. There are other probabilities on the cards besides the probability of Nita’s falling in love with him.’
‘If that’s your way of looking at it, I’ve done,’ replied Miss Margaret, mightily offended, and prancing onwards with her head higher than ever. ‘Indeed, I think I will go into the house.’
‘As you please,’ he returned. ‘I am going to stroll about here for a short time.’
Miss Shuttleworth stalked onwards in dudgeon. Mr. Bolton was left pacing by the river walk.
‘It is an odd complication,’ he was reflecting, ‘and it would be an odd result if I should have toiled all these years to place my child and this place into the hands of one of the old stock once more. But it must be as will make the child most happy. As for him, he may make an admirable gentleman of property and an excellent husband, but he will never make money. He may learn sufficient of business habits to be able to keep it together when it is there, but the business he conducted would soon stand still. Still, if he is honest, and honourable, and a gentleman in thought and feeling, as he appears to be, and the man who will make my little girl happy—which I begin to think is the case—there seems a sort of appropriateness in his being a Wellfield. It was through no sin of his that he lost the place, and from all I can hear he has been perfectly well-conducted. At least, I can see no reason for forcibly separating them, and why should not my daughter marry a high-born gentleman? She is worthy the best in the land.’
More meditations, all tending in the same direction—more pacing to and fro, until, raising his eyes, he saw his daughter approaching, accompanied by Jerome Wellfield. Nita’s eyes were bright, and there was a soft flush upon her cheeks. She looked undeniably pretty. Wellfield looked as he always did—handsome with a beauty which is given to few men to wear, stately and high-bred more than most men.
‘They make a goodly couple,’ thought the fond father. ‘She is a winsome lass, and he—yes, by gad, there is something in birth and breeding. He looks the right master for a place like this.’
With which jumble of fatherly pride, commercial astuteness, and prudent calculation, he advanced to meet them.
‘John has gone home to dinner,’ said Nita; ‘he’s coming down in the evening.’