“About mamma? Oh, don’t you think, Sir Thomas, it is coming all right?”
“Not about your mother. It is coming all right, thank God, better than I ever hoped. This is about myself. Frances, give me your advice. You have seen a great deal since you came to town. What with Nelly Winterbourn and poor young Gaunt, and all that has happened in your own family, you have acquired what Con calls experience in life.”
Frances’ small countenance grew grave too. “I don’t think it can be true life,” she said.
He gave a little laugh, in which there was a tinge of embarrassment. “From your experience,” he said, “tell me: would you ever advise, Frances, a marriage between a girl like you—mind you, a good girl, that would do her duty, not in Nelly Winterbourn’s way—and an elderly, rather worldly man?”
“Oh no, no, Sir Thomas,” cried the girl; and then she paused a little, and said to herself that perhaps she might have hurt Sir Thomas’s feelings by so distinct an expression. She faltered a little, and added: “It would depend, wouldn’t it, upon who they were?”
“A little, perhaps,” he said. “But I am glad I have had your first unbiassed judgment. Now for particulars. The man is not a bad old fellow, and would take care of her. He is rich, and would provide for her—not like that hound Winterbourn. Oh, you need not make that gesture, my dear, as if money meant nothing; for it means a great deal. And the girl is as good a little thing as ever was born. Society has got talking about it; it has been spread abroad everywhere; and perhaps if it comes to nothing, it may do her harm. Now, with those further lights, let me have your deliverance. And remember, it is very serious—not play at all.”
“I have not enough lights, Sir Thomas. Does she,” said Frances, with a slight hesitation—“love him? And does he love her?”
“He is very fond of her; I’ll say that for him,” said Sir Thomas hurriedly. “Not perhaps in the boy-and-girl way. And she—well, if you put me to it, I think she likes him, Frances. They are as friendly as possible together. She would go to him, I believe, with any of her little difficulties. And he has as much faith in her—as much faith as in—— I can’t put a limit to his faith in her,” he said.
Frances looked up at him with the grave judicial look into which she had been forming her soft face. “All you say, Sir Thomas, looks like a father and child. I would do that to papa—or to you.”
Here he burst, to her astonishment, into a great fit of laughter, not without a little tremor, as of some other feeling in it. “You are a little Daniel,” he said. “That’s quite conclusive, my dear. Oh, wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”