come back from the grave." He stooped towards her and kissed her.
"There, run away to your sister, my dear, and do not trouble yourself
about me. Nothing is settled yet, but you will find that all will come
right."

Clara went upstairs sad at heart, for she was sure now that what she had
feared was indeed about to come to pass, and that her father was going
to take Mrs. Westmacott to be his wife. In her pure and earnest mind
her mother's memory was enshrined as that of a saint, and the thought
that any one should take her place seemed a terrible desecration. Even
worse, however, did this marriage appear when looked at from the point
of view of her father's future. The widow might fascinate him by her
knowledge of the world, her dash, her strength, her unconventionality--
all these qualities Clara was willing to allow her--but she was
convinced that she would be unendurable as a life companion. She had
come to an age when habits are not lightly to be changed, nor was she a
woman who was at all likely to attempt to change them. How would a
sensitive man like her father stand the constant strain of such a wife,
a woman who was all decision, with no softness, and nothing soothing in
her nature? It passed as a mere eccentricity when they heard of her
stout drinking, her cigarette smoking, her occasional whiffs at a long
clay pipe, her horsewhipping of a drunken servant, and her companionship
with the snake Eliza, whom she was in the habit of bearing about in her
pocket. All this would become unendurable to her father when his first
infatuation was past. For his own sake, then, as well as for her
mother's memory, this match must be prevented. And yet how powerless
she was to prevent it! What could she do? Could Harold aid her?
Perhaps. Or Ida? At least she would tell her sister and see what she
could suggest.