ask that again as a favour. I could see that in his eye, and I understood it from his tone. He went on to speak of you and Bell, saying how well he loved you both; but that, unfortunately, his hopes regarding you had not been fulfilled.'
'Ah, but he shouldn't have had hopes of that sort.'
'Listen, my dear, and I think that you will not feel angry with him. He said that he felt his house had never been pleasant to you. Then there followed words which I could not repeat, even if I could remember them. He said much about myself, regretting that the feeling between us had not been more kindly. 'But my heart,' he said, 'has ever been kinder than my words.' Then I got up from where I was seated, and going over to him, I told him that we would remain here.'
'And what did he say?'
'I don't know what he said. I know that I was crying, and that he kissed me. It was the first time in his life. I know that he was pleased,—beyond measure pleased. After a while he became animated, and talked of doing ever so many things. He promised that very painting of which you spoke.'
'Ah, yes, I knew it; and Hopkins will be here with the peas before dinner-time to-morrow, and Dingles with his shoulders smothered with rabbits. And then Mrs Boyce! Mamma, he didn't think of Mrs Boyce; or, in very charity of heart, he would still have maintained his sadness.'
'Then he did not think of her; for when I left him he was not at all sad. But I haven't told you half yet.'
'Dear me, mamma; was there more than that?'
'And I've told it all wrong; for what I've got to tell now was said before a word was spoken about the house. He brought it in just after what he said about Bernard. He said that Bernard would, of course, be his heir.'
'Of course he will.'
'And that he should think it wrong to encumber the property with any charges for you girls.'
'Mamma, did any one ever—'
'Stop, Lily, stop; and make your heart kinder towards him if you can.'
'It is kind; only I hate to be told that I'm not to have a lot of money, as though I had ever shown a desire for it. I have never envied Bernard his man-servant, or his maid-servant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his. To tell the truth I didn't even wish it to be Bell's, because I knew well that there was somebody she would like a great deal better than ever she could like Bernard.'
'I shall never get to the end of my story.'
'Yes, you will, mamma, if you persevere.'
'The long and the short of it is this, that he has given Bell three thousand pounds, and has given you three thousand also.'
'But why me, mamma?' said Lily, and the colour of her cheeks became red as she spoke. There should if possible be nothing more said about John Eames; but whatever might or might not be the necessity of speaking, at any rate, let there be no mistake. 'But why me, mamma?'
'Because, as he explained to me, he thinks it right to do the same by each of you. The money is yours at this moment,—to buy hair-pins with, if you please. I had no idea that he could command so large a sum.'
'Three thousand pounds! The last money he gave me was half-a-crown, and I thought that he was so stingy! I particularly wanted ten shillings. I should have liked it so much better now if he had given me a nice new five-pound note.'
'You'd better tell him so.'
'No; because then he'd give me that too. But with five pounds I should have the feeling that I might do what I liked with it;—buy a dressing-case, and a thing for a squirrel to run round in. But nobody ever gives girls money like that, so that they can enjoy it.'
'Oh, Lily; you ungrateful child!'
'No, I deny it. I'm not ungrateful. I'm very grateful, because his heart was softened,—and because he cried and kissed you. I'll be ever so good to him! But how I'm to thank him for giving me three thousand pounds, I cannot think. It's a sort of thing altogether beyond my line of life. It sounds like something that's to come to me in another world, but which I don't want quite yet. I am grateful, but with a misty, hazy sort of gratitude. Can you tell me how soon I shall have a new pair of Balmoral boots because of this money? If that were brought home to me I think it would enliven my gratitude.'
The squire, as he rode back to Guestwick, fell again from that animation, which Mrs Dale had described, into his natural sombre
