Dale.

"He told me to put up for you the best I could pick, and I means to
do it;" and Hopkins, as he spoke, indicated by a motion of his head
that he was making reference to the squire.

"We shan't have any place for them," said Lily.

"I must send a few, miss, just to cheer you up a bit. I fear you'll
be very dolesome there. And the doctor,--he ain't got what you can
call a regular garden, but there is a bit of a place behind."

"But we wouldn't rob the dear old place," said Lily.

"For the matter of that what does it signify? T' squire'll be that
wretched he'll turn sheep in here to destroy the place, or he'll have
the garden ploughed. You see if he don't. As for the place, the place
is clean done for, if you leave it. You don't suppose he'll go and
let the Small House to strangers. T' squire ain't one of that sort
any ways."

"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs Dale, as soon as Hopkins had taken himself
off.

"What is it, mamma? He's a dear old man, but surely what he says
cannot make you really unhappy."

"It is so hard to know what one ought to do. I did not mean to be
selfish, but it seems to me as though I were doing the most selfish
thing in the world."

"Nay, mamma; it has been anything but selfish. Besides, it is we that
have done it; not you."

"Do you know, Lily, that I also have that feeling as to breaking
up one's old mode of life of which Hopkins spoke. I thought that I
should be glad to escape from this place, but now that the time has
come I dread it."

"Do you mean that you repent?"

Mrs Dale did not answer her daughter at once, fearing to commit
herself by words which could not be retracted. But at last she said,
"Yes, Lily; I think I do repent. I think that it has not been well
done."

"Then let it be undone," said Lily.

The dinner-party at Guestwick Manor on that day was not very bright,
and yet the earl had done all in his power to make his guests happy.
But gaiety did not come naturally to his house, which, as will have
been seen, was an abode very unlike in its nature to that of the
other earl at Courcy Castle. Lady de Courcy at any rate understood
how to receive and entertain a houseful of people, though the
practice of doing so might give rise to difficult questions in the
privacy of her domestic relations. Lady Julia did not understand it;
but then Lady Julia was never called upon to answer for the expense
of extra servants, nor was she asked about twice a week who the ----
was to p