h his lawyer
touching the legalities of the affair--should come to Barstone, and,
bearding Mr. Vernor in his den, establish his claim. As Wilford was
not to return till the same day, and as I proposed accompanying Mr.
Frampton, I thought I should be alarming Clara unnecessarily if I were
to inform her of Wilford's designs. I therefore merely cautioned her
against him generally, begging her never to trust herself with him
alone, and adding, that I hoped she would see nothing more of him before
she was placed under the protection of her uncle, of whom I drew--as he
so well deserved at my hands--a most favourable picture, though I
did not attempt to conceal his eccentricities either of manner or
appearance, considering it better she should be prepared for them
beforehand. So we rode on side by side, happy in each other's society,
the bright sunshine, which threw its golden mantle over the gnarled
limbs and wide-spreading branches of the old trees beneath which we
passed, being scarcely brighter or more genial than the joy which shed
its sunlight on our hearts, replacing the dreary shadows of the past
with fair hopes and gladsome prospects for the future; and when we
parted, which was not till we had ridden a circuit of some miles, and
exercise had brought back the rose to Clara's pale cheeks, and joy the
smile to her lip, we did so in the full assurance that, after our
next meeting, man's self-interest and injustice should be powerless to
interfere further with our happiness. Were these bright hopes ever fated
to be realised?

After cautioning old Peter to watch over his young mistress as a mother
over her child, telling him I should return in time to frustrate any
plan Wilford might devise, and begging him, if anything unexpected
should occur, instantly to despatch a messenger to me, I took leave
of Clara with one of those lingering pressures of the hand which tell,
better than words, of full hearts, to which it is indeed grief to
separate; and setting spurs to my horse, I rode back to Heathfield
as different a being from what I was when I left it, as though I had
literally "changed my mind" for that of some other individual.

My first care on reaching the Hall was to relieve Mr. Frampton's
anxiety, and when he learned that his niece ~422~~ was not the jilt he
had deemed her, but quite perfection (for that was what I stated, with
the same quiet certainty of promulgating an incontrovertible fact, with
which I should have