Mr. Greenmantle was a very stern man, who could look at his daughter as though he never meant to give way. And, without saying a word, he could make all Plumplington understand that such was to be the case. “Poor Emmy,” said the old Doctor to his old wife; “I’m afraid there’s a bad time coming for her.” “He’s a nasty cross old man,” said the old woman. “It always does take three generations to make a ‘gentleman.’ ” For Mrs. Freeborn’s ancestors had come from the time of James I.
“You and I had better understand each other,” said Mr. Greenmantle, standing up with his back to the fireplace, and looking as though he were all poker from the top of his head to the heels of his boots. “You cannot marry Mr. Philip Hughes.” Emily said nothing but turned her eyes down upon the ground. “I don’t suppose he thinks of doing so without money.”
“He has never thought about money at all.”
“Then what are you to live upon? Can you tell me that? He has £220 from the bank. Can you live upon that? Can you bring up a family?” Emily blushed as she still looked upon the ground. “I tell you fairly that he shall never have the spending of my money. If you mean to desert me in my old age—go.”
“Papa, you shouldn’t say that.”
“You shouldn’t think it.” Then Mr. Greenmantle looked as though he had uttered a clenching argument. “You shouldn’t think it. Now go away, Emily, and turn in your mind what I have said to you.”
II
“Down I Shall Go”
Then there came about a conversation between the two young ladies which was in itself very interesting. They had not met each other for about a fortnight when Emily Greenmantle came to Mr. Peppercorn’s house. She had been thoroughly unhappy, and among her causes for sorrow had been the severance which seemed to have taken place between her and her friend. She had discussed all her troubles with Dr. Freeborn, and Dr. Freeborn had advised her to see Polly. “Here’s Christmas-time coming on and you are all going to quarrel among yourselves. I won’t have any such nonsense. Go and see her.”
“It’s not me, Dr. Freeborn,” said Emily. “I don’t want to quarrel with anybody; and there is nobody I lke better than Polly.” Thereupon Emily went to Mr. Peppercorn’s house when Peppercorn would be certainly at the brewery, and there she found Polly at home.
Polly was dressed very plainly. It was manifest to all eyes that the Polly Peppercorn of today was not the same Polly Peppercorn that had been seen about Plumplington for the last twelve months. It was equally manifest that Polly intended that everybody should see the difference. She had not meekly put on her poorer dress so that people should see that she was no more than her father’s child; but it was done with some ostentation. “If father says that Jack and I are not to have his money I must begin to reduce myself by times.” That was what Polly intended to say to all Plumplington. She was sure that her father would have to give way under such shots as she could fire at him.
“Polly, I have not seen you, oh, for such a long time.”
Polly did not look like quarrelling at all. Nothing could be more pleasant than the tone of her voice. But yet there was something in her mode of address which at once excited Emily Greenmantle’s attention. In bidding her visitor welcome she called her Miss Greenmantle. Now on that matter there had been some little trouble heretofore, in which the banker’s daughter had succeeded in getting the better of the banker. He had suggested that Miss Peppercorn was safer than Polly; but Emily had replied that Polly was a nice dear girl, very much in Dr. Freeborn’s good favours, and in point of fact that Dr. Freeborn wouldn’t allow it. Mr. Greenmantle had frowned, but had felt himself unable to stand against Dr. Freeborn in such a matter. “What’s the meaning of the Miss Greenmantle?” said Emily sorrowfully.
“It’s what I’m come to,” said Polly, without any show of sorrow, “and it’s what I mean to stick to as being my proper place. You have heard all about Jack Hollycombe. I suppose I ought to call him John as I’m speaking to you.”
“I don’t see what difference it will make.”
“Not much in the long run; but yet it will make a difference. It isn’t that I should not like to be just the same to you as I have been, but father means to put me down in the world, and I don’t mean to quarrel with him about that. Down I shall go.”
“And therefore I’m to be called Miss Greenmantle.”
“Exactly. Perhaps it ought to have been always so as I’m so poorly minded as to go back to such a one as Jack Hollycombe. Of course it is going back. Of course Jack is as good as father was at his age. But father has put himself up since that and has put me up. I’m such poor stuff that I wouldn’t stay up. A girl has to begin where her
