As for Daniel Granger,
any reference to him and his admiration for her touched upon the regions of
the absurd. Nothing--no friendly manoeuvring of Lady Laura's, no selfish
desires of her father's--could ever induce her to listen for a moment to
any proposition from that quarter.
She asked her visitor to go into the house presently, in order to put an
end to the conversation; and Lady Laura went in to say a few words to
Mr. Lovel. They were very melancholy words--all about the dead, and his
innumerable virtues--which seemed really at this stage of his history
to have been alloyed by no human frailty or shortcoming. Mr. Lovel was
sympathetic to the last degree--sighed in unison with his visitor, and
brushed some stray drops of moisture from his own eyelids when Lady Laura
wept. And then he went out to the carriage with my lady, and saw her drive
away, with the blinds discreetly lowered as before.
"What did she come about, Clarissa?" he asked his daughter, while they were
going back to the house.
"Only to see me, papa."
"Only to see you! She must have had something very important to say to you,
I should think, or she would scarcely have come at such a time."
He glanced at his daughter sharply as he said this, but did not question
her farther, though he would have liked to do so. He had a shrewd suspicion
that this visit of Lady Laura's bore some reference to George Fairfax.
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