ela.

"Everything's possible, my dear."

"Lady Charlotte?"

"There is a Lady Charlotte."

"Who would be Lady Charlotte still, whatever occurred!"

Mr. Pole laughed. "No, no. You get nothing out of me. All I say is, be
practical. The sun isn't always shining."

He appeared to be elated with some secret good news.

"Have you been over to Besworth, the last two or three days?" he asked.

The ladies smiled radiantly, acknowledging Wilfrid's wonderful
persuasive powers, in their hearts.

"No, papa; we have not been," said Adela. "We are always anxious to go,
as I think you know."

The merchant chirped over his glass. "Well, well! There's a way."

"Straight?"

"Over a gate; ha, ha!"

His gaiety would have been perplexing, but for the allusion to Lady
Charlotte.

The sisters, in their unfailing midnight consultation, persuaded
one another that Wilfrid had become engaged to that lady. They wrote
forthwith Fine Shades to him on the subject. His answer was Boeotian,
and all about Besworth. "Press it now," he said, "if you really want
it. The iron is hot. And above all things, let me beg you not to be
inconsiderate to the squire, when he and I are doing all we can for
you. I mean, we are bound to consider him, if there should happen to be
anything he wishes us to do."

What could the word 'inconsiderate' imply? The ladies were unable to
summon an idea to solve it. They were sure that no daughters could be
more perfectly considerate and ready to sacrifice everything to their
father. In the end, they deputed the volunteering Adela to sit with him
in the library, and put the question of Besworth decisively, in the name
of all. They, meantime, who had a contempt for sleep, waited aloft to
hold debate over the result of the interview.

An hour after midnight, Adela came to them, looking pale and uncertain:
her curls seeming to drip, and her blue eyes wandering about the room,
as if she had seen a thing that kept her in a quiver between belief and
doubt.

The two ladies drew near to her, expressing no verbal impatience, from
which the habit of government and great views naturally saved them, but
singularly curious.

Adela's first exclamation: "I wish I had not gone," alarmed them.

"Has any change come to papa?" breathed Arabella.

Cornelia smiled. "Do you not know him too well?"

An acute glance from Adela made her ask whether Besworth was to be
surrendered.

"Oh, no! my dear. We may have Besworth."

"Th