'Yes,' she said, faintly. 'That is if you will approve;' and then she blushed as she remembered the promise which she had so lately volunteered to him, and which she had so utterly forgotten in making her engagement with Mr Arabin.
Mr Harding thought for a moment who the man could be whom he was to be called upon to welcome as his son-in-law. A week since he would have had no doubt whom to name. In that case he would have been prepared to give his sanction, although he would have done so with a heavy heart. Now he knew that at any rate it would not be Mr Slope, though he was perfectly at a loss to guess who could possibly have filled his place. For a moment he thought that the man might be Bertie Stanhope, and his very soul sank within him.
'Well, Nelly?'
'Oh, papa, promise me that, for my sake, you will love him.'
'Come, Nelly, come; tell me who it is.'
'But you will love him, papa?'
'Dearest, I must love any one that you love.' Then she turned he face to his, and whispered into his ear the name of Mr Arabin.
No man that she could have named could have more surprised or more delighted him. Had he looked round the world for a son-in-law to his taste, he could have selected no one whom he would have preferred to Mr Arabin. He was a clergyman; he held a living in the neighbourhood; he was of a set to which all Mr Harding's own partialities most closely adhered; he was the great friend of Dr Grantly; and he was, moreover, a man of whom Mr Harding knew nothing but what he approved. Nevertheless his surprise was so great as to prevent the immediate expression of his joy. He had never thought of Mr Arabin in connection with his daughter; he had never imagined that they had any feeling in common. He had feared that his daughter had been made hostile to clergymen of Mr Arabin's stamp by her intolerance of the archdeacon's pretensions. Had he been put to wish, he might have wished for Mr Arabin for a son-in-law; but had he been put to guess, the name would never have occurred to him.
'Mr Arabin!' he exclaimed; 'impossible!'
'Oh, papa, for heaven's sake don't say anything against him!
If you do love me, don't say anything against him. Oh, papa, it's done, and mustn't be undone--oh, papa!'
Fickle Eleanor! Where was the promise that she would make no choice for herself without her father's approval? She had chosen, and now demanded his acquiescence. 'Oh, papa, isn't he good? isn't he noble? isn't he religious, high-minded, everything that a good man possibly can be?' and she clung to her father, beseeching him for his consent.
'My Nelly, my child, my own daughter! He is; he is noble and good and high-minded; he is all that a woman can love and admire. He shall be my son, my own son. He shall be as close to my heart as you are. My Nelly, my child, my happy, happy child!'
We need not pursue the interview any further. By degrees they returned to the subject of the new promotion. Eleanor tried to prove to him, as the Grantlys had done, that his age could be no bar to his being a very excellent dean; but those arguments had now even less weight than before. He said little or nothing, but sat meditative. Every now and then he would kiss his daughter, and say, 'yes,' or 'no,' or 'very true,' or 'well, my dear, I can't quite agree with you there,' but he could not be got to enter sharply into the question of 'to be or not to be' dean of Barchester. Of her and her happiness, of Mr Arabin and his virtues, he would talk as much as Eleanor desired; and, to tell the truth, that was not a little; but about the deanery he would now say nothing further. He had got a new idea into his head--Why should not Mr Arabin be the new dean?
