.
    Was it to speak of his anxiousness as to the state of her father's health
that he had led her there, and that he held her hand? He alarmed her, and he
pacified her alarm, yet bade her reflect on the matter, saying that her father,
like other fathers, would be more at peace upon the establishment of his
daughter. Mr. Austin remarked that the colonel was troubled.
    »Does he wish for my pledge never to marry without his approval? I will give
it,« said Cecilia.
    »He would like you to undertake to marry the man of his choice.«
    Cecilia's features hung on an expression equivalent to: - »I could almost do
that.«
    At the same time she felt it was not Seymour Austin's manner of speaking. He
seemed to be praising an unknown person - some gentleman who was rough, but of
solid promise and singular strength of character.
    The house-bell rang. Believing that Beauchamp had now come, she showed a
painful ridging of the brows, and Mr. Austin considerately mentioned the name of
the person he had in his mind.
    She readily agreed with him regarding Mr. Tuckham's excellent qualities - if
that was indeed the name; and she hastened to recollect how little she had
forgotten Mr. Tuckham's generosity to Beauchamp, and confessed to herself it
might as well have been forgotten utterly for the thanks he had received. While
revolving these ideas she was listening to Mr. Austin; gradually she was
beginning to understand that she was parting company with her original
conjectures, but going at so swift a pace in so supple and sure a grasp, that,
like the speeding train slipped on new lines of rails by the pointsman, her
hurrying sensibility was not shocked, or the shock was imperceptible, when she
heard him proposing Mr. Tuckham to her for a husband, by her father's authority,
and with his own warm seconding. He had not dropped her hand: he was very
eloquent, a masterly advocate: he pleaded her father's cause; it was not put to
her as Mr. Tuckham's: her father had set his heart on this union: he was
awaiting her decision.
    »Is it so urgent?« she asked.
    »It is urgent. It saves him from an annoyance. He requires a son-in-law whom
he can confidently rely on to manage the estates, which you are woman of the
world enough to know should be in strong hands. He gives you to a man of settled
principles.
