From his first action to the last of which the tidings had arrived at Clavering-in-the-Hollow, he had distinguished himself by his spirit, his coolness and judgment in the council-chamber, and his fiery, impetuous ardor on the battle-field. From a captain in Colonel Bagot’s regiment of horse he had risen so rapidly, as to be given the command of that regiment, on the appointment of the gallant officer who raised it to be governor of Litchfield. For a while, as Sir Hugh Clavering noted the encomiums passed on the conduct of the young man, whom he had, indeed, loved until he discovered what he considered his presumption, in aspiring to his daughter’s hand, he had expressed some pleasure; for he was of a generous and noble temper, although stern, unyielding, and exacting, and had even, on the occasion of his promotion, declared at the supper-table, when the news reached him, not without something of self-gratulation at his own prescient sagacity, that he had always foreseen that Lionel Thornhill would do great things, and rise to honor, should opportunity be vouchsafed, and fortune favor him. Unfortunately, however, poor Margaret, delighted at hearing her lover’s praises flowing from that unaccustomed tongue, had displayed her emotion and her joy so visibly in her flushed cheeks, clasped hands, and sparkling eyes, that the stern old baronet at once perceived his error—an error into which he would not have fallen, had he not been well assured, from the unconscious manner and absolute tranquillity of his sweet child, that absence, and time, joined to the knowledge of his determination, had eradicated all the traces of her misplaced and, as he hoped, transient passion from the maiden’s breast. Once satisfied that such was not the case, with the decisive, energetic obstinacy, which was his principal characteristic, he had resolved to compel her at once to an union which he had long desired to bring about, but which was so repugnant to his daughter, whom, in spite of his severity, he loved more dearly than any thing else on earth, that although he had often given her to understand that it must be at some future time, he had yet so continually delayed, and so entirely forborne to press it, that she had begun to regard it rather in the light of an old story adhered to from pertinacity, but in truth signifying nothing, than as a real peril, immediate, and threatening her happiness. Now, however, changing his plans on the instant, he constantly invited the suitor of his choice to Clavering, though still without speaking on the subject at all to Margaret; encouraged him to persist in his attentions, in spite of the coldness, and sometimes of the aggressive impertinence of the overwrought maiden, and directed the servants to treat Sir Andrew Acton in all respects as the future husband of his daughter, and as their future master.