ated her to think
nothing of it; to dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums
from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a
right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though
it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessed--and what that might
amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced
persons, in his attempt to give advice to another, he was very
impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb
to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the
allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the
young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and
chose to think that she had listened to good and wise things.

"Your sister," he said--"but we won't speak of her. If I could part with
you, my lass, I'd rather she was the one to come back."

"Dahlia would be killed by our quiet life now," said Rhoda.

"Ay," the farmer mused. "If she'd got to pay six men every Saturday
night, she wouldn't complain o' the quiet. But, there--you neither of
you ever took to farming or to housekeeping; but any gentleman might be
proud to have one of you for a wife. I said so when you was girls. And
if, you've been dull, my dear, what's the good o' society? Tea-cakes
mayn't seem to cost money, nor a glass o' grog to neighbours; but once
open the door to that sort o' thing and your reckoning goes. And what I
said to your poor mother's true. I said: Our girls, they're mayhap not
equals of the Hollands, the Nashaws, the Perrets, and the others about
here--no; they're not equals, because the others are not equals o' them,
maybe."

The yeoman's pride struggled out in this obscure way to vindicate his
unneighbourliness and the seclusion of his daughters from the society
of girls of their age and condition; nor was it hard for Rhoda to assure
him, as she earnestly did, that he had acted rightly.

Rhoda, assisted by Mrs. Sumfit, was late in the night looking up what
poor decorations she possessed wherewith to enter London, and be worthy
of her sister's embrace, so that she might not shock the lady Dahlia had
become.

"Depend you on it, my dear," said Mrs. Sumfit, "my Dahly's grown above
him. That's nettles to your uncle, my dear. He can't abide it. Don't
you see he can't? Some men's like that. Others 'd see you dressed like a
princess, and not be satisfied. They vary so, the teasin' creatures!