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Page 11
"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 the nearest blood we have."
"Julius! I never heard tell of such a name."
"Yes, it is a silly kind of a foreign name. His mother is called Julia:
I suppose that is how it comes. No Sandal was ever called such a name
before, but the young man mustn't be blamed for his godfather's
foolishness, Alice. Eh?"
"I'm not so unjust. Poor Launcie! I saw him once at a ball in Kendal.
Are you sure he was drowned?"
"I followed him to Whitehaven, and found out that he had gone away in a
ship that never came home. Mother and Launcie were in bad bread when he
left, and she never fretted for him as she did for Tom."
"Why did you not tell me all this before?"
"I said to myself, there's time enough yet to be planning husbands for
girls that haven't a thought of the kind. We were very happy with them;
I couldn't bear to break things up; and I never once feared about Steve
Latrigg, not I."
"What does your brother and his wife say?"
"Tom is with me. As for his wife, I know nothing of her, and she knows
nothing of us. She has been in England a good many times, but she never
said she would like to come and see us, and my mother never wanted to
see her; so there wasn't a compliment wasted, you see. Eh? What?"
"No, I don't see, William. All about it is in a muddle, and I must say I
never heard tell of such ways. It is like offering your own flesh and
blood for sale. And to people who want nothing to do with us. I'm
astonished at you, squire."
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