housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how
terrible a reprobate their master had been.

"You will see your father before you go to bed?" Miss Scarborough said
to her nephew as she left the room.

"Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it."

"He does wish it, most anxiously."

"I believe that to be your imagination. At any rate, I will come--say in
an hour's time. He would be just as pleased to see Harry Annesley, for
the matter of that, or Mr. Grey, or the inspector of police. Any one
whom he could shock, or pretend to shock, by the peculiarity of his
opinions, would do as well." By that time, however, Miss Scarborough had
left the room.

Then the three men sat and talked, and discussed the affairs of the
family generally. New leases had just been granted for adding
manufactories to the town of Tretton: and as far as outward marks of
prosperity went all was prosperous. "I expect to have a water-mill on
the lawn before long," said Augustus. "These mechanics have it all their
own way. If they were to come and tell me that they intended to put up a
wind-mill in my bedroom to-morrow morning, I could only take off my hat
to them. When a man offers you five per cent. where you've only had
four, he is instantly your lord and master. It doesn't signify how
vulgar he is, or how insolent, or how exacting. Associations of the
tenderest kind must all give way to trade. But the shooting which lies
to the north and west of us is, I think, safe for the present. I suppose
I must go and see what my father wants, or I shall be held to have