peculiarities were not, perhaps, very conspicuous in her daughters,
who had taken more in that respect from their mother than from their
father; but a close observer might recognise the girls as Dales. They
were constant, perhaps obstinate, occasionally a little uncharitable
in their judgment, and prone to think that there was a great deal in
being a Dale, though not prone to say much about it. But they had
also a better pride than this, which had come to them as their
mother's heritage.

Mrs Dale was certainly a proud woman,--not that there was anything
appertaining to herself in which she took a pride. In birth she had
been much lower than her husband, seeing that her grandfather had
been almost nobody. Her fortune had been considerable for her rank
in life, and on its proceeds she now mainly depended; but it had not
been sufficient to give any of the pride of wealth. And she had been
a beauty; according to my taste, was still very lovely; but certainly
at this time of life, she, a widow of fifteen years' standing, with
two grown-up daughters, took no pride in her beauty. Nor had she any
conscious pride in the fact that she was a lady. That she was a lady,
inwards and outwards, from the crown of her head to the sole of her
feet, in head, in heart, and in mind, a lady by education and a
lady by nature, a lady also by birth in spite of that deficiency
respecting her grandfather, I hereby state as a fact--_meo periculo_.
And the squire, though he had no special love for her, had recognised
this, and in all respects treated her as his equal.

But her position was one which required that she should either be
very proud or else very humble. She was poor, and yet her daughters
moved in a position which belongs, as a rule, to the daughters of
rich men only. This they did as nieces of the childless squire of