a share of the Ingleton pride,
and she would have liked his absence treated with more concern. She
thought Mr. Bowden ought to advertise in the Agony Column of _The
Times_, beseeching Everard to return home, but their guardian only
laughed when she suggested such a course, and assured her that her
brother would turn up in time when he was tired of managing for himself.

"I've been in the law for thirty years, my dear, and I know human nature
better than you do," he declared indulgently.

"But you don't know Everard as I do!" protested Lilias.

She could not take Mr. Bowden's view of the case. Everard had left the
Chase in such deep anger and resentment that the chances of a speedy
change in his outlook seemed remote. Lilias longed to write to him, but
knew of no address to which it was possible to post a letter. She
worried often over his mysterious absence, and was quite angry with
Dulcie for not taking the matter more keenly to heart.

"But Mr. Bowden and Cousin Clare think he's all right!" protested that
easy going young damsel.

"How do they know? I think you might show a little more interest in your
own brother, who, after all, has been treated extremely badly. It seems
to me hardly decent to circle round Carmel as you do!"

Dulcie opened her blue eyes wide.

"Do I circle round Carmel? Well, really, and why shouldn't I like her?
She's my cousin, and a jolly good sort too! I believe she'll give us all
a far better time at the Chase than Everard would have done. He always
wanted everything just his own way. None of us ever had an innings when
he was at home. I never could see why the eldest of a family should lord
it so over the others."

"You never had any proper sense of propriety!" retorted Lilias
indignantly. "_I_ believe in keeping up the traditions of the Ingletons,
and the estate has always descended strictly in the male line. It's only
right it should have been left to Everard instead of to a girl, and I'll
always say so. There!"

Dulcie shrugged her shoulders.

"Say what you like, Sister o' Mine! The twentieth century is different
from the Middle Ages, and people don't bother so much nowadays as they
did about descent and all that. The owner of an estate hasn't to fight
for it. Oh yes, of course I'm glad I'm an Ingleton, but Carmel's an
Ingleton too, as much as we are, and if the Chase is hers we can't help
it, and we may just as well make the best of it!"

With which piece of philosophy, Dulcie