"He would like to sell the house in London, and bury us all here for
ever. Mind, I was there only for ten weeks."

"Barely time for the girls to get their teeth properly looked at! But
Arabella, what does he say?" Lady de Courcy was very anxious to learn
the exact truth of the matter, and ascertain, if she could, whether
Mr Gresham was really as poor as he pretended to be.

"Why, he said yesterday that he would have no more going to town at
all; that he was barely able to pay the claims made on him, and keep
up the house here, and that he would not--"

"Would not what?" asked the countess.

"Why, he said that he would not utterly ruin poor Frank."

"Ruin Frank!"

"That's what he said."

"But, surely, Arabella, it is not so bad as that? What possible
reason can there be for him to be in debt?"

"He is always talking of those elections."

"But, my dear, Boxall Hill paid all that off. Of course Frank will
not have such an income as there was when you married into the
family; we all know that. And whom will he have to thank but his
father? But Boxall Hill paid all those debts, and why should there be
any difficulty now?"

"It was those nasty dogs, Rosina," said the Lady Arabella, almost in
tears.

"Well, I for one never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury.
When a man has once involved his property he should not incur any
expenses that are not absolutely necessary. That is a golden rule
which Mr Gresham ought to have remembered. Indeed, I put it to him
nearly in those very words; but Mr Gresham never did, and never will
receive with common civility anything that comes from me."

"I know, Rosina, he never did; and yet where would he have been
but for the de Courcys?" So exclaimed, in her gratitude, the Lady
Arabella; to speak the truth, however, but for the de Courcys, Mr
Gresham might have been at this moment on the top of Boxall Hill,
monarch of all he surveyed.

"As I was saying," continued the countess, "I never approved of the
hounds coming to Greshamsbury; but yet, my dear, the hounds can't
have eaten up everything. A man with ten thousand a year ought to be
able to keep hounds; particularly as he had a subscription."

"He says the subscription was little or nothing."

"That's nonsense, my dear. Now, Arabella, what does he do with his
money? That's the question. Does he gamble?"

"Well," said Lady Arabella, very slowly, "I don't think he does." If
the squire did gamble he must have don