poverty. It always is so, and Mrs Boyce was not worse
than her neighbours.

"You'll find they'll make it up before the time comes," said Mr
Boyce, to whom the excitement of such a change in affairs was almost
too good to be true.

"I am afraid not," said Mrs Boyce; "I'm afraid not. They are both so
determined. I always thought that riding and giving the girls hats
and habits was injurious. It was treating them as though they were
the squire's daughters, and they were not the squire's daughters."

"It was almost the same thing."

"But now we see the difference," said the judicious Mrs Boyce. "I
often said that dear Mrs Dale was wrong, and it turns out that I was
right. It will make no difference to me, as regards calling on them
and that sort of thing."

"Of course it won't."

"Not but what there must be a difference, and a very great difference
too. It will be a terrible come down for poor Lily, with the loss of
her fine husband and all."

After dinner, when Mr Boyce had again gone forth upon his labours,
the same subject was discussed between Mrs Boyce and her daughters,
and the mother was very careful to teach her children that Mrs Dale
would be just as good a person as ever she had been, and quite as
much a lady, even though she should live in a very dingy house at
Guestwick; from which lesson the Boyce girls learned plainly that Mrs
Dale, with Bell and Lily, were about to have a fall in the world, and
that they were to be treated accordingly.

From all this, it will be discovered that Mrs Dale had not given way
to the squire's arguments, although she had found herself unable to
answer them. As she had returned home she had felt herself to be
almost vanquished, and had spoken to the girls with the air and tone
of a woman who hardly knew in which course lay the line of her duty.
But they had not seen the squire's manner on the occasion, nor heard
his words, and they could not understand that their own purpose
should be abandoned because he did not like it. So they talked their
mother into fresh resolves, and on the following morning she wrote a
note to her brother-in-law, assuring him that she had thought much of
all that he had said, but again declaring that she regarded herself
as bound in duty to leave the Small House. To this he had returned no
answer, and she had communicated her intention to Mrs Hearn, thinking
it better that there should be no secret in the matter.

"I am sorry to hear that your sis