Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/262

240 "We shan't have any place for them," said Lily.

"I must send a few, miss, just to cheer you up a bit. I fear you'll be very dolesome there. And the doctor,—he ain't got what you can call a regular garden, but there is a bit of a place behind."

"But we wouldn't rob the dear old place," said Lily.

"For the matter of that what does it signify? T' squire'll be that wretched he'll turn sheep in here to destroy the place, or he'll have the garden ploughed. You see if he don't. As for the place, the place is clean done for, if you leave it. You don't suppose he'll go and let the Small House to strangers. T' squire ain't one of that sort any ways."

"Ah me!" exclaimed Mrs. Dale, as soon as Hopkins had taken himself off.

"What is it, mamma? He's a dear old man, but surely what he says cannot make you really unhappy."

"It is so hard to know what one ought to do. I did not mean to be selfish, but it seems to me as though I were doing the most selfish thing in the world."

"Nay, mamma; it has been anything but selfish. Besides, it is we that have done it; not you."

"Do you know, Lily, that I also have that feeling as to breaking up one's old mode of life of which Hopkins spoke. I thought that I should be glad to escape from this place, but now that the time has come I dread it."

"Do you mean that you repent?"

Mrs. Dale did not answer her daughter at once, fearing to commit herself by words which could not be retracted. But at last she said, "Yes, Lily; I think I do repent. I think that it has not been well done."

"Then let it be undone," said Lily.

The dinner-party at Guestwick Manor on that day was not very bright, and yet the earl had done all in his power to make his guests happy. But gaiety did not come naturally to his house, which, as will have been seen, was an abode very unlike in its nature to that of the other earl at Courcy Castle. Lady de Courcy at any rate understood how to receive and entertain a housefull of people, though the practice of doing so might give rise to difficult questions in the privacy of her domestic relations. Lady Julia did not understand it; but then Lady Julia was never called upon to answer for the expense of extra servants, nor was she asked about twice a week who the