ating, "What is the
matter with you, squire?"

"What is the matter, indeed? Love-making. That is the matter, Alice."

"Charlotte?"

"Yes."

"And Stephen Latrigg?"

"Yes."

"I thought as much. Opportunity is a dangerous thing."

"My word! To hear you talk, one would think it was matterless how our
girls married."

"It is never matterless how any girl marries, squire; and our
Charlotte"--

"Oh, I thought Charlotte was a child yet! How could I tell there was
danger at Up-Hill? You ought to have looked better after your daughters.
See that she doesn't go near-hand Latrigg's again."

"I wouldn't be so foolish, William. It's a deal better not to notice.
Make no words about it; and, if you don't like Stephen, send Charlotte
away a bit. Half of young people's love-affairs is just because they are
handy to each other."

"'Like Stephen!' It is more than a matter of liking, as you know very
well. If Harry Sandal goes on as he has been going, there will be little
enough left for the girls; and they must marry where money will not be
wanted. More than that, I've been thinking of brother Tom's boy for one
of them. Eh? What?"

"You mean, you have been writing to Tom about a marriage? I would have
been above a thing like that, William. I suppose you did it to please
your mother. She always did hanker after Tom, and she always did dislike
the Latriggs. I have heard that when people were in the grave they
'ceased from troubling,' but"--

"Alice!"

"I meant no harm, squire, I'm sure; and I would not say wrong of the
dead for any thing, specially of your mother; but I think about my own
girls."

"There, now, Alice, don't whimper and cry. I am not going to harm your
girls, not I. Only mother was promised that Tom's son should have the
first chance for their favor. I'm sure there's nothing amiss in that.
Eh?"

"A young man born in a foreign country among blacks, or very near
blacks. And nobody knows who his mother was."

"Oh, yes! his mother was a judge's daughter, and she had a deal of
money. Her son has been well done to; sent to the very best German and
French schools, and now he is at Oxford. I dare say he is a very good
young man, and at any rate he is the only Sandal of this generation
except our own boy."

"Your sisters have sons."

"Yes, Mary has three: they are _Lockerbys_. Elizabeth has two: they are
_Piersons_. My poor brother Launcie was drowned, and never had son or
daughter; so that Tom's Julius is