"Well, my dear, as for my consent, of course you may have it,--if it's worth anything.

I don't know that I ever heard anything bad about Captain Aylmer." He had heard nothing bad about Captain Aylmer! Clara, as she left her father, felt that this was very grievous.

Whatever cause she might have had for discontent with her lover, she could not but be aware that he was a man whom any father might be proud to welcome as a suitor for his daughter.

He was a man as to whom no ill tales had ever been told;--who had never been known to do anything wrong or imprudent; who had always been more than respectable, and as to whose worldly position no exception could be taken.

She had been entitled to expect her father's warmest congratulations, and her tidings had been received as though she had proposed to give her hand to one whose character and position only just made it not imperative on the father to withhold his consent! All this was hard, and feeling it to be so, she went up-stairs, all alone, and cried bitterly as she thought of it.
On the next day she went down to the cottage and saw Mrs.Askerton.
She went there with the express purpose of telling her friend of her engagement,--desirous of obtaining in that quarter the sympathy which her father declined to give her.