pense too great for you, I
will go away."

"Where will you go?"

"I care not where I go. I will earn my bread. If I cannot do that, I
would rather live in the poor-house than accept my cousin's money."

"What has he done?"

"I do not know."

"As Mr Apjohn very well puts it, there is no question whatsoever as
to gratitude, or even of acceptance. It is a matter of course. He
would be inexpressibly vile were he not to do this."

"He is inexpressibly vile."

"Not in this respect. He is quite willing. You will have nothing to
do but to sign a receipt once every half-year till the whole sum
shall have been placed to your credit."

"I will sign nothing on that account; nor will I take anything."

"But why not? What has he done?"

"I do not know. I do not say that he has done anything. I do not care
to speak of him. Pray do not think, papa, that I covet the estate,
or that I am unhappy about that. Had he been pleasant to my uncle
and good to the tenants, had he seemed even to be like a man, I
could have made him heartily welcome to Llanfeare. I think my uncle
was right in choosing to have a male heir. I should have done so
myself--in his place."

"He was wrong, wickedly wrong, after his promises."

"There were no promises made to me: nothing but a suggestion, which
he was, of course, at liberty to alter if he pleased. We need not,
however, go back to that, papa. There he is, owner of Llanfeare,
and from him, as owner of Llanfeare, I will accept nothing. Were I
starving in the street I would not take a crust of bread from his
fingers."

Over and over again the conversation was renewed, but always with
the same result. Then there was a correspondence between the two
attorneys, and Mr Apjohn undertook to ask permission from the
Squire to pay the money to the father's receipt without asking any
acknowledgement from the daughter. On hearing this, Isabel declared
that if this were done she would certainly leave her father's house.
She would go out of it, even though she should not know whither she
was going. Circumstances should not be made so to prevail upon her as
to force her to eat meat purchased by her cousin's money.

Thus it came to pass that Isabel's new home was not made comfortable
to her on her first arrival. Her stepmother would hardly speak to
her, and the girls knew that she was in disgrace. There was Mr Owen,
willing enough, as the stepmother knew, to take Isabel away and
relieve them all from this