CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Pole was one of those men whose characters are read off at a glance.
He was neat, insignificant, and nervously cheerful; with the eyes of a
bird, that let you into no interior. His friends knew him thoroughly.
His daughters were never in doubt about him. At the period of the
purchase of Brookfield he had been excitable and feverish, but that was
ascribed to the projected change in his habits, and the stern necessity
for an occasional family intercommunication on the subject of money. He
had a remarkable shyness of this theme, and reversed its general
treatment; for he would pay, but would not talk of it. If it had to be
discussed with the ladies, he puffed, and blinked, and looked so much
like a culprit that, though they rather admired him for what seemed to
them the germ of a sense delicate above his condition, they would have
said of any man they had not known so perfectly, that he had painful
reasons for wishing to avoid it. Now that they spoke to him of Besworth,
assuring him that they were serious in their desire to change their
residence, the fit of shyness was manifested, first in outrageous praise
of Brookfield, which was speedily and inexplicably followed by a sort of
implied assent to the proposition to depart from it. For Besworth
displayed numerous advantages over Brookfield, and to contest one was to
plunge headlong into the money question. He ventured to ask his
daughters what good they expected from the change. They replied that it
was simply this: that one might live fifty years at Brookfield and not
get such a circle as in two might be established at Besworth. They were
restricted. They had gathering friends, and no means of bringing them
together. And the beauty of the site of Besworth made them enthusiastic.

"Well, but," said Mr. Pole: "what does it lead to? Is there nothing to
come after?"