‘And I didn’t give her two minutes.’
’You never do give two minutes to anyone do
you, Will? But you’ll be back there at
Christmas, and then she will have had time to turn
it over in her mind.’
‘And you think that I may have a chance?’
‘Certainly you may have a chance.’
‘Although she was so sure about it?’
’She spoke of her own mind and her own heart
as she knew them then. But it depends chiefly
on this, Will whether there is any one else. For
anything we know, she may be engaged now.’
‘Of course she may.’ Then Belton
speculated on the extreme probability of such a contingency;
arguing within his own heart that of course every
unmarried man who might see Clara would want to marry
her, and that there could not but be some one whom
even she would be able to love.
When he had been home about a fortnight, there came
a letter to him from Clara, which was a great treasure
to him. In truth, it simply told him of the completion
of the cattle-shed, of her father’s health, and
of the milk which the little cow gave; but she signed
herself his affectionate cousin, and the letter was
very gratifying to him. There were two lines
of a postscript, which could not but flatter him:
’Papa is so anxious for Christmas, that you
may be here again and so, indeed, am I also.’
Of course it will be understood that this was written
before Clara’s visit to Perivale, and before
Mrs Winterfield’s death. Indeed, much happened
in Clara’s history between the writing of that
letter and Will Belton’s winter visit to the
Castle.
But Christmas came at last, all too slowly for Will
and he started on his journey. On this occasion
he arranged to stay a week in London, having a lawyer
there whom he desired to see; and thinking, perhaps,
that a short time spent among the theatres might assist
him in his love troubles.
MR WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN LONDON
At the time of my story there was a certain Mr Green,
a worthy attorney, who held chambers in Stone Buildings,
Lincoln’s Inn, much to the profit of himself
and family and to the profit and comfort also of a
numerous body of clients a man much respected in the
neighbourhood of Chancery Lane, and beloved, I do
not doubt, in the neighbourhood of Bushey, in which
delightfully rural parish he was possessed of a genteel
villa and ornamental garden. With Mr Green’s
private residence we shall, I believe, have no further
concern; but to him at his chambers in Stone Buildings
I must now introduce the reader of these memoirs.
He was a man not yet forty years of age, with still
much of the salt of youth about him, a pleasant companion
as well as a good lawyer, and one who knew men and
things in London, as it is given to pleasant clever
fellows, such as Joseph Green, to know them. Now
Mr Green and his father before him had been the legal
