“I can’t remember if he offered before or afterwards,” Osborn replied, with a touch of embarrassment.  “Anyhow, I don’t think it’s important, because I did not allow his offer to persuade me.  For all that, it’s some satisfaction to get the work done cheap.”

Grace pondered.  She was intelligent; contact with her school companions had developed her character, and she had begun to understand Osborn since she came home.  She knew he was easily deceived and sometimes half-consciously deceived himself.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think the work will really be cheap.  It’s often expensive to take a favor from a man like Bell.  He will find a means of making you pay.”

“Ridiculous!  Bell can’t make me pay.”

“Then he will make somebody else pay for what he does for you, and it’s hardly honest to let him,” Grace insisted.

Mrs. Osborn gave her a warning glance and Osborn’s face got red.

“It’s a new thing for a young girl to criticize her father.  This is what comes of indulging your mother and making some sacrifice to send you to an expensive modern school!  If I’d had my way, you would have gone to another, where they teach the old-fashioned virtues:  modesty, obedience, and respect for parents.”

Grace smiled, because she knew the school Osborn meant and the type it produced.  She was grateful to her mother for a better start.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, but with a hint of resolution.  “I don’t want to criticize, but Bell is greedy and cunning, and now he has got both coal yards will charge the farmers more than he ought.  He has already got too large a share of all the business that is done in the dale.”

“It’s obvious that you have learned less than you think,” Osborn rejoined, feeling that he was on safer ground.  “You don’t seem to understand that concentration means economy.  Bell, for example, buys and stores his goods in large quantities, instead of handling a number of small lots at different times, which would cost him more.”

“I can see that,” Grace admitted, “But I imagine he will keep all he saves.  You know the farmers are grumbling about his charges.”

Osborn frowned.  “You talk too much to the farm people; I don’t like it.  You can be polite, but I want you to remember they are my tenants, and not to sympathize with their imaginary grievances.  They’re a grumbling lot, but will keep their places if you leave them alone.”

He got up abruptly and when he went off across the lawn Mrs. Osborn gave the girl a reproachful glance.

“You are very rash, my dear.  On the whole, your father was remarkably patient.”

Grace laughed, a rather strained laugh, as Osborn’s angry voice rose from behind a shrubbery.

“He isn’t patient now, and I’m afraid Jackson is paying for my fault.  However, I really think I was patient, too.  To talk about people keeping their places is ridiculous; in fact, it’s piffle!  Father’s notions are horribly out of date.  One wonders he doesn’t know.”