But should her
stepmother have once refused her permission, then the matter would
have been decided against her. It would be quite useless to appeal
from her stepmother to her father; nor would such an appeal come
within the scope of her own principles. The Mortons, and especially
Lady Ushant, had been her father's friends in old days and she
thought that perhaps she might prevail in this case if she could
speak to her father first. She knew well what would be the great,
or rather the real objection. Her mother would not wish that she
should be removed so long from Larry Twentyman. There might be
difficulties about her clothes, but her father, she knew would be
kind to her.
At last she made up her mind that she would ask her father. He was
always at his office-desk for half an hour in the morning, before
the clerks had come, and on the following day, a minute or two
after he had taken his seat, she knocked at the door. He was busy
reading a letter from Lord Rufford's man of business, asking him
certain questions about Goarly and almost employing him to get up
the case on Lord Rufford's behalf. There was a certain triumph to
him in this. It was not by his means that tidings had reached Lord
Rufford of his refusal to undertake Goarly's case. But Runciman,
who was often allowed by his lordship to say a few words to him in
the hunting-field, had mentioned the circumstance.
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