You are in your own house; you are on
your own land. But let me tell 'ee that if I did come here to you
instead of taking you to me, it was done at the dictates of
convenience merely. H-! I'm no beggar! Ha'n't I a place of my
own? Ha'n't I an avenue as long as thine? Ha'n't I beeches that
will more than match thy oaks? I should have lived in my own quiet
house and land, contented, if you had not called me off with your
airs and graces. Faith, I'll go back there; I'll not stay with thee
longer! If it had not been for our Betty I should have gone long
ago!'
After this there were no more words; but presently, hearing the
sound of a door opening and shutting below, the girl again looked
from the window. Footsteps crunched on the gravel-walk, and a shape
in a drab greatcoat, easily distinguishable as her father, withdrew
from the house. He moved to the left, and she watched him diminish
down the long east front till he had turned the corner and vanished.
He must have gone round to the stables.
She closed the window and shrank into bed, where she cried herself
to sleep. This child, their only one, Betty, beloved ambitiously by
her mother, and with uncalculating passionateness by her father, was
frequently made wretched by such episodes as this; though she was
too young to care very deeply, for her own sake, whether her mother
betrothed her to the gentleman discussed or not.
The Squire had often gone out of the house in this manner, declaring
that he would never return, but he had always reappeared in the
morning.
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