All this time Clara considered that Mr. Tippetson was engaged, if not actually at least virtually and by implicit understanding, to Miss Henderson; and as her own affections had been once much interested about Horatio Markham, and as she had suffered on his account, or on account of his image on her mind, a very serious illness, she imagined that she was irrevocably doomed to live or die for the absent youth. Being therefore totally unsuspicious of the possibility of any danger of the wandering of her affection, she behaved with much unreserve to Mr. Tippetson, and was pleased with the friendly interest which he seemed to take in her welfare. And as Clara's manners were easy and unconstrained, as in the acquaintance between the parties there was much sociability of expression and habit, the young gentleman fancied that he had actually made some progress in the young lady's affection. In fact, he had made so much progress as this, that from being absolutely disagreeable he had become tolerable, and from being tolerable he had become almost agreeable. Young ladies, though sometimes prodigiously wise, are not always very partial to a superabundance of that article in mothers and grandfathers; and a very little wisdom in a young gentleman, seems to them much more intellectual than a great deal in an old one. The monotony of wisdom is also wearying to the novelty-loving mind of youth, and the variety of folly becomes an agreeable relief. It is true that Mr. Tippetson was a fop and a fribble and a dandy and an exquisite, and all that sort of thing; but was it to be wondered at? And there are many very respectable and intelligent middle-aged men who in their early days were as great puppies as any lads now living. And again, the foppery of dress and affectation of manners are only offensive, or chiefly so, to those superannuated, formal, queer, quizzical creatures, who delight in any cut of a coat that is not fashionable. Now Clara did not judge of Mr. Tippetson according to the principle and standard of a staid middle-aged or elderly gentleman, or by the feelings of a matronly lady, who thinks the young men of the present generation much more graceless fops than their predecessors.