Mr. Lord turned to look at her.

'How? What do you mean?'

'I don't want to make you angry with me--'

'Say what you've got to say,' broke in her father impatiently.

'It isn't easy, when you so soon lose your temper.'

'My girl,'--for once he gazed at her directly,--'if you knew all
I have gone through in life, you wouldn't wonder at my temper being
spoilt.--What do you mean? What could I have done?'

She stood before him, and spoke with diffidence.

'Don't you think that if we had lived in a different way, Horace and
I might have had friends of a better kind?'

'A different way?--I understand. You mean I ought to have had a
big house, and made a show. Isn't that it?'

'You gave us a good education,' replied Nancy, still in the same
tone, 'and we might have associated with very different people from
those you have been speaking of; but education alone isn't enough.
One must live as the better people do.'

'Exactly. That's your way of thinking. And how do you know that I
could afford it, to begin with?'