It will perhaps be thought very unfeeling of Katherine to have received as she did this unlooked for elderly lover. All Sliplin, it is true, could have told her for some time past that the Rector was in love with her, and meant to make her an offer, and Miss Mildmay believed that she had been aware of it long before that. But it had never occurred to Katherine that the father of Charlotte and Gerard was occupied with herself in any way, or that such an idea could enter his mind. He had heard her say her catechism! He had given Charlotte in her presence the little sting of a reproof about making a noise, and other domestic sins which Katherine was very well aware she was intended to share. In the _douceurs_ which, there was no denying, he had lately shed about, she had thought of nothing but a fatherly intention to console her in her changed circumstances; and to think that all the time this old middle-aged man, this father of a family, had it in his mind to make her his wife! Katherine let her flowers lie drooping, and paced up and down the room furious, angry even with herself. Forty-five is a tremendous age to three-and-twenty; and it was the first time she had ever received a proposal straight in the face, so to speak. Turny and Company had treated with her father, but had retreated from before her own severe aspect when she gave it to be seen how immovable she was. And to think that her first veritable proposal should be this--a thing that filled her with indignation! What! did the man suppose for a moment that she, his daughter’s friend, would marry him? Did all men think that a girl would do anything to be married?--or what did they think? Katherine could not realise that Mr. Stanley to the Rector was not at all the same person that he was to her. The Rector thought himself in the prime of life, and so he was. The children belonged to him and he was accustomed to them, and did not, except now and then, think them a great burden; but himself was naturally the first person in his thoughts. He knew that he was a very personable man, that his voice was considered beautiful, and his aspect (in the pulpit) imposing. His features were good, his height was good, he was in full health and vigour. Why shouldn’t he have asked anybody to marry him? The idea that it was an insult to a girl never entered his mind. And it was no insult. He was not even poor or in pursuit of her wealth. No doubt her wealth would make a great difference, but that was not in the least his motive, for he had thought of her for years. And in his own person he was a man any woman might have been proud of. All this was very visible to him.