'Must you really tackle him?'

'Well, I thought I was the person to do it. It's quite certain
nobody else could make anything of it.'

Privately Beryl disagreed, but she made no comment.

'Aubrey seems to be pretty worried,' she said, in a depressed tone,
as she turned away.

'I don't wonder. He should have brought up his father better. Well,
good-bye, dear. Don't bother too much.'

She waved her hand to him as he made off, and stood watching him
from the steps--a gentle, attaching figure, her fair hair and the
pale oval of her face standing out against the panelled hall behind
her.

Her father went his way down a long winding hill beyond his own
grounds, along a country road lined with magnificent oaks, through a
village where his practised eye noted several bad cottages with
disapproval, till presently he slackened his horse's pace, as he
passed an ill-looking farm about half a mile beyond the village.

'Not a decent gate in the whole place!' he said to himself with
disgust. 'And the farm buildings only fit for a bonfire. High time
indeed that we made Mannering sit up!'

He paused also to look over the neighbouring hedge at some fields