A silence of some minutes ensued. Ducie had long ceased to weep for her
dead love, but he was unforgotten. Her silence was not oblivion: it was
a sanctuary where lights were burning round the shrine, over which the
wings of affection were folded.

"When my father was gone, then you came back to Up-Hill?"

"No: I did not come back until you were in your fourth year. Then my
mother died, and I brought you home. At the first moment you went
straight to your grandfather's heart; and that night, as you lay asleep
upon his knee, I told him the truth, as I tell it to you this night. And
he said to me, 'Ducie, things have settled a bit lately. The squire has
got over his trouble about Launcie; and young William is the
acknowledged heir, and the welcome heir. He is going to marry Alice
Morecombe at the long last, but it will make a big difference if
Launcelot's son steps in where nobody wants him. Now, then,' he said, 'I
will tell thee a far better way. We will give this dear lad my own name,
none better in old Cumbria; and we will save gold, and we will make
gold, to put it to the very front in the new times that are coming. And
he will keep my name on the face of the earth, and so please the great
company of his kin behind him. And it will be far better for him to be
the top-sheaf of the Latriggs, than to force his way into Seat-Sandal,
where there is neither love nor welcome for him.'

"And I thought the same thing, Stephen; and after that, our one care was
to make you happy, and to do well to you. That you were a born Sandal,
was a great joy to him, for he loved your father and your grandfather;
and, when Harry came, he loved him also, and he liked well to see you
two on the fells together. Often he called me to come and look at you
going off with your rods or guns; and often he said, 'Both fine lads,
Ducie, but our Steve is the finer.'"

"Oh, mother, I cannot take Harry's place! I love Harry, and I did not
know how much until this hour"--

"Stop a bit, Stephen. When Harry grew up, and went into the army, your
grandfather wasn't so satisfied with what he had done. 'Here's a fine
property going to sharpers and tailors and Italian singing-women,' he
used to say; and he felt baddish about it. And yet he loved Squire
William, as he had loved his father, and Mistress Alice and Harry and
Sophia and Charlotte; why, he thought of them like his own flesh and
blood. And he could not bear to undo his kindness. And he could not bea