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CHAPTER II.
BEGINNING THE WORLD.
"Who on earth was that man you were talking to, Clary?" asked the Reverend Mathew Oliver, when he had seen his niece's luggage carried off to a fly, and was conducting her to that vehicle. "Is it any one you know?"
"O, no, uncle; only a gentleman who travelled in the same carriage with me from London. He was very kind."
"You seemed unaccountably familiar with him," said Mr. Oliver with an aggrieved air; "you ought to be more reserved, my dear, at your age. A young lady travelling alone cannot be too careful. Indeed, it was very wrong of your father to allow you to make this long journey alone. Your aunt has been quite distressed about it."
Clarissa sighed faintly; but was not deeply concerned by the idea of her aunt's distress. Distress of mind, on account of some outrage of propriety on the part of her relatives, was indeed almost the normal condition of that lady.
"I travelled very comfortably, I assure you, uncle Oliver," Clarissa replied. "No one was in the least rude or unpleasant. And I am so glad to come home—I can scarcely tell you how glad—though, as I came nearer and nearer, I began to have all kinds of fanciful anxieties. I hope that all is well—that papa is quite himself."
"O, yes, my dear; your papa is—himself," answered the parson, in a tone that implied that he did not say very much for Mr. Lovel in admitting that fact. "Your papa is well enough in health, or as well as he will ever acknowledge himself to be. Of course, a man who neither hunts nor shoots, and seldom gets out of bed before ten o'clock in the day, can't expect to be remarkably robust. But your father will live to a good old age, child, rely upon it, in spite of everything."
"Am I going straight home, uncle?"