ell you that, as regards the girls, everybody that
knows you will think you to have been very wrong. It is in the
natural course of things that they should live in that house. The
place has never been let. As far as I know, no rent has ever been
paid for the house since it was built. It has always been given to
some member of the family, who has been considered as having the best
right to it. I have considered your footing there as firm as my own
here. A quarrel between me and your children would be to me a great
calamity, though, perhaps, they might be indifferent to it. But if
there were such a quarrel it would afford no reason for their leaving
that house. Let me beg you to think over the matter again."

The squire could assume an air of authority on certain occasions, and
he had done so now. Mrs Dale found that she could only answer him
by a simple repetition of her own intention; and, indeed, failed in
making him any serviceable answer whatsoever.

"I know that you are very good to my girls," she said.

"I will say nothing about that," he answered; not thinking at that
moment of the Small House, but of the full possession which he had
desired to give to the elder of all the privileges which should
belong to the mistress of Allington,--thinking also of the means by
which he was hoping to repair poor Lily's shattered fortunes. What
words were further said had no great significance, and Mrs Dale got
herself away, feeling that she had failed. As soon as she was gone
the squire arose, and putting on his great-coat, went forth with his
hat and stick to the front of the house. He went out in order that
his thoughts might be more free, and that he might indulge in that
solace which an injured man finds in contemplating his injury. He
declared to himself that he was very hardly used,--so hardly used,
that he almost began to doubt himself, and his own motives. Why was
it that the people around him disliked him so strongly,--avoided him
and thwarted him in the efforts which he made for their welfare? He
offered to his nephew all the privileges of a son,--much more indeed
than the privileges of a son,--merely asking in return that he would
consent to live permanently in the house which was to be his own. But
his nephew refused. "He cannot bear to live with me," said the old
man to himself sorely. He was prepared to treat his nieces with more
generosity than the daughters of the House of Allington had usually
received from t