Her companion, with his head still in the air, seemed to signify that he simply put it down on the table and that she could take it or not as she liked. “Her character--formed by my assiduous care--enables me to locate her, I may say even to _time_ her, from moment to moment.” His massive watch, as he opened it, further sustained him in this process. “It’s my assured conviction that she’s accepting him while we stand here.” Mrs. Gracedew was so affected by his assured conviction that, with an odd, inarticulate sound, she forbore to stand longer--she rapidly moved away, taking one of the brief excursions of step and sense that had been for her, from the first, under the noble roof, so many dumb but decisive communions. But it was soon over, and she floated back on a wave that showed her to be, since she had let herself go, by this time quite in the swing and describing a considerable curve. “Dear Mr. Prodmore, why are you so imprudent as to make your daughter afraid of you? You should have taught her to confide in you. She has clearly shown me,” she almost soothingly pursued, “that she _can_ confide.” Mr. Prodmore, however, suddenly starting, looked far from soothed. “She confides in _you_?” “You may take it from me!” Mrs. Gracedew laughed. “Let me suggest that, as fortune has thrown us together a minute, you follow her good example.” She put out a reassuring hand--she could perfectly show him the way. “Tell me, for instance, the ground of your objection to poor Mr. Pegg. I mean Mr. Pegg of Bellborough, Mr. Hall Pegg, the godson of your daughter’s grandmother and the associate of his father in their flourishing house; to whom (as _he_ is to _it_ and to _her_) Miss Prodmore’s devotedly attached.” Mr. Prodmore had in the course of this speech availed himself of the support of the nearest chair, where, in spite of his subsidence, he appeared in his amazement twice his natural size. “It has gone so far as _that_?” She rose before him as if in triumph. “It has gone so far that you had better let it go the rest of the way!” He had lost breath, but he had positively gained dignity. “It’s too monstrous, to have plotted to keep me in the dark!” “Why, it’s only when you’re kept in the dark that your daughter’s kept in the light!” She argued it with a candour that might have served for brilliancy. “It’s at her own earnest request that I plead to you for her liberty of choice. She’s an honest girl--perhaps even a peculiar girl; and she’s not a baby. You over-do, I think, the nursing. She has a perfect right to her preference.” Poor Mr. Prodmore couldn’t help taking it from her, and, this being the case, he still took it in the most convenient way. “And pray haven’t I a perfect right to mine?” he asked from his chair. She fairly seemed to serve it up to him--to put down the dish with a flourish. “Not at her expense. You expect her to give up too much.”