Pray give my kindest regards to my cousin Clara, whom I can only just remember as a very little girl.

She was with her aunt at Perivale when I was at Belton as a boy.

She shall find a friend in me if she wants a friend.
Your affectionate cousin, W.BELTON.
Clara read the letter very slowly, so that she might make herself sure of its tone and bearing before she was called upon by her father to express her feeling respecting it.

She knew that she would be expected to abuse it violently, and to accuse the writer of vulgarity, insolence, and cruelty; but she had already learned that she must not allow herself to accede to all her father's fantasies.
For his sake, and for his protection, it was necessary that she should differ from him, and even contradict him.

Were she not to do so, he would fall into a state of wailing and complaining that would exaggerate itself almost to idiotcy.