at the end of the first week in December. Then
there was a postscript to the letter in which the Marquis suggested
that Mr. Knox had better take a house for the Marchioness, and apply
Mr. Price's rent in the payment for such house. "Of course you will
consult my mother," said the postscript; "but it should not be anywhere
near Brotherton."

There was an impudence as well as a cruelty about this which almost
shook the belief which Lord George still held in the position of an
elder brother. Mr. Knox was to take a house;--as though his mother and
sisters had no rights, no freedom of their own! "Of course I will go,"
said he, almost pale with anger.

Then Mr. Knox explained his views. It was his intention to write back
to the Marquis and to decline to execute the task imposed upon him. The
care of the Marquis's property was no doubt his chief mainstay; but
there were things, he said, which he could not do. Of course the
Marquis would employ someone else, and he must look for his bread
elsewhere. But he could not, he said, bring himself to take steps for
the letting of Manor Cross as long as the Marchioness was living there.

Of course there was a terrible disturbance in the house. There arose a
great question whether the old lady should or should not be told of
this new trouble, and it was decided at last that she should for the
present be kept in the dark. Mr. Knox was of opinion that the house
never would be let, and that it would not be in his Lordship's power to
turn them out without procuring for them the use of Cross Hall;--in
which Mr. Price's newly married bride had made herself comfortable on a
lease of three years. And he was also of opinion that the attempt made
by the Marquis to banish his brother was a piece of monstrous tyranny
to which no attention should be paid. This he said before all the
younger ladies;--but to Lord George himself he said even more. He
expressed a doubt whether the Marquis could be in his right mind, and
added a whisper that the accounts of the Marquis's health were very bad
indeed. "Of course he could let the house?" asked Lord George.

"Yes;--if he can get anybody to let it for him, and anybody else to
take it. But I don't think it ever will be let. He won't quite know
what to do when he gets my letter. He can hardly change his agent
without coming to London, and he won't like to do that in the winter.
He'll write me a very savage letter, and then in a week or two I shall
answer hi