There had not indeed ever been in the behaviour of Penelope towards Mr Darnley anything actually disrespectful; but Mr Darnley could see that her spirit was high and essentially unsubmissive. He had therefore always called her proud; and as soon as any suspicion arose of the withdrawing of her affections from Robert Darnley, immediately the father concluded that this change was owing to the young lady's pride aspiring to the hand of Lord Spoonbill; and when she went to London to the Countess, then his suspicion seemed corroborated; and when she returned to Smatterton, and when Mr Primrose sent the note in question to Neverden, then did Mr Darnley feel himself assured that the young lady had been disappointed in her calculations concerning Lord Spoonbill, and that now she repented her folly in renouncing the hand of Robert Darnley, and wished to recall the affection which she had spurned. Under such persuasion, from which not all the logic in the world could move him, he smiled at the credulity and the weakness of the young man, while the young man was equally astonished and grieved at the immovable obstinacy of his father. Such cases sometimes occur, and perplexing are they when they do occur, in which a son bearing all possible respect towards a father feels himself yet justified in the court of his own conscience in acting contrary to his father's will. Thus situated was the son of the rector of Neverden. He found that it would be in vain to use any arguments, and he was firm in his intention of taking the earliest opportunity of acknowledging the receipt of Mr Primrose's letter, and of expressing his full determination to renew the acquaintance with Penelope. So far was the young man from participating in his father's suspicions, that the very arguments which the father had used, and the particulars which he had stated, did but strengthen his own opinion of the purity and correctness of the young lady's conduct; and when he considered the circumstances under which she had been placed, he felt a degree of pity for her, and he pitied her also that she laboured under those untoward and unfounded suspicions which had been excited by the idle tongue of Zephaniah Pringle.