There was nothing unusual in this: for, like many another uxorious man (with all his faults of temper he was uxorious), Mr.Wesley hated that anyone should offer love to his daughters.

This antipathy of his had been a nuisance for ten years past; since the girls were, when all was said, honest healthy girls with an instinct for mating, and not to be blamed for making their best of the suitors which Epworth and its neighbourhood provided.

But since Sukey's marriage it had deepened into something like a mania, and now, in Hetty's case, flared up with a passion incomprehensible if not quite insane.

He declared his hatred of lawyers--and certainly he had suffered at their hands: he forbade the young man to visit the house, to correspond with Hetty, even to see her.
Mrs.Wesley watched her daughter and was troubled.

The Rector's veto had been effective enough once or twice with Hetty's sisters.
Emilia, on a visit with her uncle Matthew in London, had fallen passionately in love with a young Oxonian named Leybourne.