in every danger, now that you have got somebody else to depend
upon you and to care for you? It's very, very wrong."

"Somebody had to do it, Molly. It was most important, in the interests
of hunting generally, that those hounds should not have been allowed to
get into that covert. I don't think that outsiders ever understand how
essential it is to maintain your rights. It isn't as though it were an
individual. The whole county may depend upon it."

"Why shouldn't it be some man who hasn't got a young woman to look
after?" said Molly, half laughing and half crying.

"It's the man who first gets there who ought to do it," said Joshua. "A
man can't stop to remember whether he has got a young woman or not."

"I don't think you ever want to remember." Then that little quarrel was
brought to the usual end with the usual blandishments, and Joshua went
on to discuss with her that other source of trouble, her brother's fall.
"Harry is awfully cut up," said the brewer.

"You mean these affairs about his uncle?"

"Yes. It isn't only the money he feels, or the property, but people
look askew at him. You ought all of you to be very kind to him."

"I am sure we are."

"There is something in it to vex him. That stupid old fool, your
uncle--I beg your pardon, you know, for speaking of him in that way--"

"He is a stupid old fool."

"Is behaving very badly. I don't know whether he shouldn't be treated as
I did that fellow up at the covert."

"Ride over him?"

"Something of that kind. Of course Harry is sore about it, and when a
man is sore he frets at a thing like that more than he ought to do. As
for that aunt of mine at Buntingford, there seems to be some hitch in
it. I should have said she'd have married the Old Gentleman had he asked
her."

"Don't talk like that, Joshua."

"But there is some screw loose. Simpson came up to my father about it
yesterday, and the governor let enough of the cat out of the bag to make
me know that the thing is not going as straight as she wishes."

"He has offered, then?"

"I am sure he has asked her."

"And your aunt will accept him?" asked Molly.

"There's probably some difference about money. It's all done with the
intention of injuring poor Harry. If he were my own brother I could not
be more unhappy about him. And as to Aunt Matilda, she's a fool. There
are two fools together. If they choose to marry we can't hinder them.
But there is some screw loose, and if the two young lo