‘You must have a monstrous good opinion of yourself, Mr. Culverhouse, when you set your own value above that of one of the finest estates in this part of Yorkshire.’ ‘I have no exalted opinion of my own value, but I have a very low estimate of the blessings of wealth. For such a woman as Beatrix a great estate can only be a great burthen. She has been brought up in solitude, she will never be a woman of the world. She does not value money.’ ‘Because she has never had to do without it, and because she has seen very little of what it can do. Launch her in the world to-morrow, and in one year she will have learned the full value of wealth. No, Mr. Culverhouse, I cannot accept your judgment in this matter. If I have withheld my affection from my daughter, so much the more reason that I should give her the estate which, as my only child, she is entitled to inherit. And it shall be my business to obtain for her such an alliance as will place her husband above the suspicion of mercenary motives.’ ‘And in arriving at this decision you put your daughter’s feelings out of the question. You do not even take the trouble to make yourself acquainted with her sentiments.’ ‘No. I trust to time. I regret that she should have been so soon exposed to a peril which I had not apprehended for her just yet. If I had, I should have been more on my guard. I must request you, as a man of honour, to hold no further communication--either personally or by letter--with my daughter, and I shall be under the painful necessity of forbidding any more visiting at the Vicarage.’ ‘You are asking too much, Mr. Harefield. No man with common sense would submit to such an exaction as that. I will do more than most men in my position would be willing to do. Your daughter is young and impulsive, unversed in worldly knowledge. I will promise to wait for her till she is of age, and to hold no communication with her in the interval. Two years hence, if your wishes have conquered, I will submit to my fate. I will make no claim. But if she still thinks as she thinks to-day, I shall claim my right to address her on equal terms. But it is my duty to remind you that your daughter has some strength of will--that she is a creature of impulse, not easily to be dragooned into subservience to the ideas and plans of another--even though that other be her father.’ ‘I shall know how to govern her impulses, sir, and to bring a stronger will than her own to bear upon her follies. I have no more to say--except that I rely upon your promise, and consider your acquaintance with my daughter at an end from this hour.’