“Then you approve?” Trevor said. He liked to receive the full expression of the gratitude which was his due.
“Approve!” said Ford. When a man without any natural dignity to speak of is moved tearfully, the effect is sometimes less pathetic than ludicrous; the good man did all but cry. “It isn’t the property, Mr. Trevor, it’s the trust,” he said, with a restrained sob. “But one thing I’ll promise, it sha’n’t be a trust betrayed. We’ll watch over her night and day. There shall be no wolf come near her while she’s with Susan and me.”
“In moderation! in moderation!” said the old man, waving his hand. “I don’t want her to be watched night and day; something must be left to Lucy herself.”
“Ah!” said Ford, drawing a long breath. He had the air of a man who was ready to patrol under his ward’s window with a pair of pistols. “Lucy has a great deal of sense, but to expose a girl to the wiles of a set of fortune-hunters is what I would never do—and with that worldly-minded old woman. Ah! Mr. Trevor, you’re too kind, you’re too kind. Lady Randolph is not one that would step out of her own sphere for nothing. It isn’t any desire she has to be kind to you.”
“Her own sphere,” said Mr. Trevor. “Money levels all spheres. And Lucy is an heiress, which makes her equal to a prince of the blood. But,” he added, with a chuckle, snapping his fingers, “that for the fortune-hunters! I’ve put bolt and bar between them and their prey. It’s all done in black and white, and I don’t know who can go against it. Listen, Ford.
“It is further my wish, and I hereby stipulate that my said daughter, Lucy, shall contract no marriage up to the age hereinafter mentioned without the consent of the following parties, who will consider themselves as a sort of committee for the disposal of her hand, and whom I hereby appoint and constitute her guardians, so far as this subject is concerned; it being fully understood that this appointment does not confer any power or authority over her pecuniary concerns. The committee which I thus charge with the arrangement of her marriage is to consist of the three persons above mentioned, to wit, Dame Elena Randolph, Richard Ford, and Susan Ford, his wife, with the following assessors added: Robert Rushton, Esq., town clerk of Farafield, my old friend; the Rev. William Williamson, of the Congregational Chapel, my pastor; and Mrs. Maria Stone, school-mistress, of the same place—”
“But, Mr. Trevor!” Ford ejaculated with a gasp. The paragraph he had just listened to took away his breath.
“Well? out with your objections; let us hear them,” said old Trevor, turning upon him, brisk and lively, and ready for war.
“Objections! yes, I can not deny it, I have objections,” said Ford, hesitating. “Mr. Trevor, you know better than I do, you that have had such quantities of money passing through your hands; but—”
“Out with it,” said Trevor; he rubbed his hands. It was an amusement the more to him to have his arrangements questioned.