In doing this he would have no silly tremors.

Whatever he might feel in speaking to the girl, he had sufficient self-confidence to be able to ask the father, if not with assurance, at any rate without trepidation.

It was, he thought, probable that the father, at the first attack, would neither altogether accede, or altogether refuse.

The disposition of the man was averse to the probability of an absolute reply at the first moment.

The lover imagined that it might be possible for him to take advantage of the period of doubt which would thus be created.
Mr.Wharton was and had for a great many years been a barrister practising in the Equity Courts,--or rather in one Equity Court, for throughout a life's work now extending to nearly fifty years, he had hardly ever gone out of the single Vice-Chancellor's Court which was much better known by Mr.Wharton's name than by that of the less eminent judge who now sat there.