ance rejected her advances. That was now seven years since;
and during those years Mrs Dale had been, at any rate, as cold to him
as he had been to her.

But all this was very hard to bear. That her daughters should love
their uncle was not only reasonable, but in every way desirable. He
was not cold to them. To them he was generous and affectionate. If
she were only out of the way, he would have taken them to his house
as his own, and they would in all respects have stood before the
world as his adopted children. Would it not be better if she were out
of the way?

It was only in her most dismal moods that this question would get
itself asked within her mind, and then she would recover herself, and
answer it stoutly with an indignant protest against her own morbid
weakness. It would not be well that she should be away from her
girls,--not though their uncle should have been twice a better uncle;
not though, by her absence, they might become heiresses of all
Allington. Was it not above everything to them that they should
have a mother near them? And as she asked of herself that morbid
question,--wickedly asked it, as she declared to herself,--did she
not know that they loved her better than all the world beside, and
would prefer her caresses and her care to the guardianship of any
uncle, let his house be ever so great? As yet they loved her better
than all the world beside. Of other love, should it come, she would
not be jealous. And if it should come, and should be happy, might
there not yet be a bright evening of life for herself? If they should
marry, and if their lords would accept her love, her friendship, and
her homage, she might yet escape from the deathlike coldness of that
Great House, and be happy in some tiny cottage, from which she might
go forth at times among those who would really welcome her. A certain
doctor there was, living not very far from Allington, at Guestwick,
as to whom she had once thought that he might fill that place of
son-in-law,--to be well-beloved. Her quiet, beautiful Bell had seemed
to like the man; and he had certainly done more than seem to like
her. But now, for some weeks past, this hope, or rather this idea,
had faded away. Mrs Dale had never questioned her daughter on the
matter; she was not a woman prone to put such questions. But during
the month or two last past, she had seen with regret that Bell looked
almost coldly on the man whom her mother favoured.

In thinking of al