tter in which I have thought much, and, I may say, suffered
much. I have ideas, old-fashioned ideas, on the matter, which I need
not pause to explain to you now. If we are as much together as I hope
we shall be, you will, no doubt, come to understand them. The
disposition of a family property, even though it be one so small as
mine, is, to my thinking, a matter which a man should not make in
accordance with his own caprices,--or even with his own affections. He
owes a duty to those who live on his land, and he owes a duty to his
country. And, though it may seem fantastic to say so, I think he owes
a duty to those who have been before him, and who have manifestly
wished that the property should be continued in the hands of their
descendants. These things are to me very holy. In what I am doing I am
in some respects departing from the theory of my life,--but I do so
under a perfect conviction that by the course I am taking I shall best
perform the duties to which I have alluded. I do not think, Hetta,
that we need say any more about that.' He had spoken so seriously,
that, though she did not quite understand all that he had said, she
did not venture to dispute his will any further. He did not endeavour
to exact from her any promise, but having explained his purposes,
kissed her as he would have kissed a daughter, and then left her and
rode home without going into the house.

Soon after that, Paul Montague came down to Carbury, and the same
thing was said to him, though in a much less solemn manner. Paul was
received quite in the old way. Having declared that he would throw all
anger behind him, and that Paul should be again Paul, he rigidly kept
his promise, whatever might be the cost to his own feelings. As to his
love for Hetta, and his old hopes, and the disappointment which had so
nearly unmanned him, he said not another word to his fortunate rival.
Montague knew it all, but there was now no necessity that any allusion
should be made to past misfortunes. Roger indeed made a solemn
resolution that to Paul he would never again speak of Hetta as the
girl whom he himself had loved, though he looked forward to a time,
probably many years hence, when he might perhaps remind her of his
fidelity. But he spoke much of the land and of the tenants and the
labourers, of his own farm, of the amount of the income, and of the
necessity of so living that the income might always be more than
sufficient for the wants of the household.