e has me carried out
of the house.'

'My dear, I couldn't say that to him.'

'Then I will. To go and be buried down in that place for a whole year
with no one near us but the rusty old bishop and Mr Carbury, who is
rustier still. I won't stand it. There are some sort of things that
one ought not to stand. If you go down I shall stay up with the
Primeros. Mrs Primero would have me I know. It wouldn't be nice of
course. I don't like the Primeros. I hate the Primeros. Oh yes;--it's
quite true; I know that as well as you, Sophia; they are vulgar; but
not half so vulgar, mamma, as your friend Madame Melmotte.'

'That's ill-natured, Georgiana. She is not a friend of mine.'

'But you're going to have her down at Caversham. I can't think what
made you dream of going to Caversham just now, knowing as you do how
hard papa is to manage.'

'Everybody has taken to going out of town at Whitsuntide, my dear.'

'No, mamma; everybody has not. People understand too well the trouble
of getting up and down for that. The Primeros aren't going down. I
never heard of such a thing in all my life. What does he expect is to
become of us? If he wants to save money why doesn't he shut Caversham
up altogether and go abroad? Caversham costs a great deal more than is
spent in London, and it's the dullest house, I think, in all England.'

The family party in Bruton Street that evening was not very gay.
Nothing was being done, and they sat gloomily in each other's company.
Whatever mutinous resolutions might be formed and carried out by the
ladies of the family, they were not brought forward on that occasion.
The two girls were quite silent, and would not speak to their father,
and when he addressed them they answered simply by monosyllables. Lady
Pomona was ill, and sat in a corner of a sofa, wiping her eyes. To her
had been imparted upstairs the purport of the conversation between
Dolly and his father. Dolly had refused to consent to the sale of
Pickering unless half the produce of the sale were to be given to him
at once. When it had been explained to him that the sale would be
desirable in order that the Caversham property might be freed from
debt, which Caversham property would eventually be his, he replied
that he also had an estate of his own which was a little mortgaged and
would be the better for money. The result seemed to be that Pickering
could not be sold;--and, as a consequence of that, Mr Longestaffe had
determined that there sho