and knowing that
her appetite had not been as it ought to be, Philippa (who really was
wrapped up in her sister, but never or seldom let her dream of such a
fact) turned round graciously and said:

"I have ordered the carriage here for half past three o'clock. We will
go back by the Scarbend road, and Heartsease can trot behind us."

"Heartsease, uneasy you have kept my heart by your shufflings and
trippings perpetual. Philippa, I want a better-stepping pony. Pet has
ruined Heartsease."

"Pet ruins everything and everybody; and you are ruining him, Eliza. I
am the only one who has the smallest power over him. And he is beginning
to cast off that. If it comes to open war between us, I shall be sorry
for Lancelot."

"And I shall be sorry for you, Philippa. In a few years Pet will be
a man. And a man is always stronger than a woman; at any rate in our
family."

"Stronger than such as you, Eliza. But let him only rebel against me,
and he will find himself an outcast. And to prove that, I have brought
you here."

Mistress Yordas turned round, and looked in a well-known manner at her
sister, whose beautiful eyes filled with tears, and fell.

"Philippa," she said, with a breath like a sob, "sometimes you look
harder than poor dear papa, in his very worst moments, used to look. I
am sure that I do not at all deserve it. All that I pray for is peace
and comfort; and little do I get of either."

"And you will get less, as long as you pray for them, instead of doing
something better. The only way to get such things is to make them."

"Then I think that you might make enough for us both, if you had any
regard for them, or for me, Philippa."

Mistress Yordas smiled, as she often did, at her sister's style of
reasoning. And she cared not a jot for the last word, so long as the
will and the way were left to her. And in this frame of mind she turned
a corner from the open moor track into a little lane, or rather the
expiring delivery of a lane, which was leading a better existence
further on.

Mrs. Carnaby followed dutifully, and Heartsease began to pick up his
feet, which he scorned to do upon the negligence of sward. And following
this good lane, they came to a gate, corded to an ancient tree, and
showing up its foot, as a dog does when he has a thorn in it. This gate
seemed to stand for an ornament, or perhaps a landmark; for the lane,
instead of submitting to it, passed by upon either side, and plunged
into a dingle