“Indeed, it is not so, Mr Dale.”

“Then what is it?”

“I know that if I attempt to tell you, you will be vexed, and will contradict me.”

“Vexed I shall be, probably.”

“And yet I cannot help it.  Indeed, I am endeavouring to do what is right by you and by the children.”

“Never mind me; your duty is to think of them.”

“Of course it is; and in doing this they most cordially agree with me.”

In using such argument as that, Mrs Dale showed her weakness, and the squire was not slow to take advantage of it.  “Your duty is to them,” he said; “but I do not mean by that that your duty is to let them act in any way that may best please them for the moment.  I can understand that they should be run away with by some romantic nonsense, but I cannot understand it of you.”

“The truth is this, Mr Dale.  You think that my children owe to you that sort of obedience which is due to a parent, and as long as they remain here, accepting from your hands so large a part of their daily support, it is perhaps natural that you should think so.  In this unhappy affair about Bell—­”

“I have never said anything of the kind,” said the squire, interrupting her.

“No; you have not said so.  And I do not wish you to think that I make any complaint.  But I feel that it is so, and they feel it.  And, therefore, we have made up our minds to go away.”

Mrs Dale, as she finished, was aware that she had not told her story well, but she had acknowledged to herself that it was quite out of her power to tell it as it should be told.  Her main object was to make her brother-in-law understand that she certainly would leave his house, and to make him understand this with as little pain to himself as possible.  She did not in the least mind his thinking her foolish, if only she could so carry her point as to be able to tell her daughters on her return that the matter was settled.  But the squire, from his words and manners, seemed indisposed to give her this privilege.

“Of all the propositions which I ever heard,” said he, “it is the most unreasonable.  It amounts to this, that you are too proud to live rent-free in a house which belongs to your husband’s brother, and therefore you intend to subject yourself and your children to the great discomfort of a very straitened income.  If you yourself only were concerned I should have no right to say anything; but I think myself bound to tell 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.”