et he is the head of our family."

"I don't care anything about the family,--not in that way."

"And he has been very generous to you all."

"That I deny. He has not been generous to mamma. He is very hard
and ungenerous to mamma. He lets her have that house because he is
anxious that the Dales should seem to be respectable before the
world; and she lives in it, because she thinks it better for us that
she should do so. If I had my way, she should leave it to-morrow--or,
at any rate, as soon as Lily is married. I would much sooner go into
Guestwick, and live as the Eames do."

"I think you are ungrateful, Bell."

"No; I am not ungrateful. And as to consulting, Bernard, I should be
much more inclined to consult you than him about my marriage. If you
would let me look on you altogether as a brother, I should think
little of promising to marry no one whom you did not approve."

But such an agreement between them would by no means have suited
Bernard's views. He had thought, some four or five weeks back, that
he was not personally very anxious for this match. He had declared to
himself that he liked his cousin well enough; that it would be a good
thing for him to settle himself; that his uncle was reasonable in his
wishes and sufficiently liberal in his offers; and that, therefore,
he would marry. It had hardly occurred to him as probable that his
cousin would reject so eligible an offer, and had certainly never
occurred to him that he would have to suffer anything from such
rejection. He had entertained none of that feeling of which lovers
speak when they declare that they are staking their all upon the
hazard of a die. It had not seemed to him that he was staking
anything, as he gently told his tale of languid love, lying on
the turf by the ha-ha. He had not regarded the possibility of
disappointment, of sorrow, and of a deeply-vexed mind. He would have
felt but little triumph if accepted, and had not thought that he
could be humiliated by any rejection. In this frame of mind he had
gone to his work; but now he found, to his own surprise, that this
girl's answer had made him absolutely unhappy. Having expressed a
wish for this thing, the very expression of the wish made him long to
possess it. He found, as he rode along silently by her side, that he
was capable of more earnestness of desire than he had known himself
to possess. He was at this moment unhappy, disappointed, anxious,
distrustful of the future, and mor