‘Oh, papa, I have so much to tell you!’ said the daughter, returning his embrace.

‘My dear, they have offered me the deanery!’ said Mr Harding, anticipating by the suddenness of the revelation the tidings which Eleanor had to give him.

‘Oh, papa,’ said she, forgetting her own love and happiness in her joy at the surprising news; ‘oh, papa, can it be possible? Dear, papa, how thoroughly, thoroughly happy that makes me!’

‘But, my dear, I think it best to refuse it.’

‘Oh, papa!’

‘I am sure you will agree with me, Eleanor, when I explain it to you. You know, my dear how old I am. If I live, I—’

‘But, papa, I must tell you about myself.’

‘Well, my dear.’

‘I do wonder how you will take it.’

‘Take what?’

‘If you don’t rejoice at it, if it doesn’t make you happy, if you don’t encourage me, I shall break my heart.’

‘If that be the case, Nelly, I certainly will encourage you.’

‘But I fear you won’t. I do so fear you won’t. And yet you can’t but think I am the most fortunate woman living on God’s earth.’

‘Are you, dearest? Then I certainly will rejoice with you. Come, Nelly, come to me, and tell me what it is.’

‘I am going—’

He led her to the sofa, and seating himself beside her, with both her hands in his. ‘You are going to be married, Nelly. Is not that it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, faintly. ‘That is if you will approve;’ and then she blushed as she remembered the promise which she had so lately volunteered to him, and which she had so utterly forgotten in making her engagement with Mr Arabin.

Mr Harding thought for a moment who the man could be whom he was to be called upon to welcome as his son–in–law. A week since he would have had no doubt whom to name. In that case he would have been prepared to give his sanction, although he would have done so with a heavy heart. Now he knew that at any rate it would not be Mr Slope, though he was perfectly at a loss to guess who could possibly have filled his place. For a moment he thought that the man might be Bertie Stanhope, and his very soul sank within him.

‘Well, Nelly?’

‘Oh, papa, promise me that, for my sake, you will love him.’

‘Come, Nelly, come; tell me who it is.’

‘But you will love him, papa?’