"Thank you, papa," she said in a low voice; "I have been very anxious to please you."
"Yes, my dear, and I hope—nay, am sure—that your future conduct will give me the same cause for satisfaction; that you will act wisely, and settle the more difficult questions of life like a woman of sense and resolution. There are difficult questions to be solved in life, you know, Clary; and woe betide the woman who lets her heart get the better of her head!"
Clarissa did not quite understand the drift of this remark, but her father dismissed the subject in his lightest manner before she could express her bewilderment.
"That's quite enough serious talk, my dear," he said; "and now give me the carte du pays. Who is here besides these Grangers? and what little social comedies are being enacted? Your letters, though very nice and dutiful, are not quite up to the Horace-Walpole standard, and have not enlightened me much about the state of things."
Clarissa ran over the names of the Castle guests. There was one which she felt would be difficult to pronounce, but it must needs come at last. She wound up her list with it: "And—and there are Lady Geraldine Challoner, and the gentleman she is going to marry—Mr. Fairfax."
To her extreme surprise, the name seemed to awaken some unwonted emotion in her father's breast.
"Fairfax!" he exclaimed; "what Fairfax is that? You didn't tell me whom Lady Geraldine was to marry when you told me you were to officiate as bridesmaid. Who is this Mr. Fairfax?"
"He has been in the army, papa, and has sold out. He is the heir to some great estate called Lyvedon, which he is to inherit from an uncle."
"His son!" muttered Mr. Lovel.
"Do you know Mr. Fairfax, papa?"