ile
looking after the property, and bringing Alured up among his own people
and interests.

Bertram did not like this at all. "Among all our old friends and
acquaintance? Impossible! unbearable!" he said.

But Fulk's answer, was--"Better so! If we went to a strange place, and
tried to conceal it, it would always be oozing out, and be supposed
disgraceful. If my sisters can bear it, I had rather confront it
straightforwardly--"

"And be _pitied_"--said Bertram, with _such_ a contemptuous tone.

Nobody, however, thought it would be advisable for him to give up the
New Zealand plan, nor did he ever mean it for a moment; indeed, he
declared that he should go and prepare for us; for that we should very
soon get tired of Skimping's Farm, and come out to him; meaning, of
course, that our dear charge would be over.

He even wanted Jaquetta to come with him at once, and the log huts and
fern trees danced before her eyes as the blue spectacles had done
before mine; but she did not like to leave me, and Fulk would not
encourage it, for we both thought her much too young and too tenderly
brought up to be sent out to a wild settler's life alone with Bertram,
and without a friend near.

To be farmers' sisters where we had been the Earl's daughters--well, I
had much rather then that it had been somewhere else; but I saw it was
best for Baby and still more so for Fulk, and clear little Jaquey held
fast to me and to him, and so it was settled!

Our friends and relatives had much rather we had all emigrated. They
did not know what to do with us, and would have been glad to have had
us all out of sight for ever, "damaged goods shipped off to the
colonies." We felt this and it heartened us up to stay out of the
spirit of opposition.

Old Aunt Amelia, who fussed and cried over us, and our two uncles, who
gave us good advice by the yard! Alas! I fear we were equally
ungrateful to them, both cold and impatient. No, we did not bear it
really well, though they said we did. We had plenty of pride and
self-respect, and that carried us on; but there was no submission, no
notion of taking it religiously. I don't mean that we did not go to
church, and in the main try to do right. Any one more upright than my
brother it would have been hard to find; but as to any notion that
religious feeling could help us, and that our reverse might be blessed
to us, that would have seemed a very strange language indeed!

And so we were hard,