"He says you're getting talked about in Lynnbrooke. You're always in and out there; and you're a deal too free and noisy with folks. He don't like that sort of thing."
Jane tossed her head again. She was extraordinarily unlike Winnie; not only by nature but by training, having been sent by her mother to a very third-rate school, and then having spent years with some distant cousins of her mother in Manchester; undesirable companions for any girl.
"He'll have to do without the liking. I'm not his humble slave—I can tell him that. Goodness gracious me, I'm not going to ask him what I may and mayn't do. He seems to think he owns our bodies and souls, because the land belongs to him."
"He's always so kind," Winnie put in reproachfully.
"Kind to you, if you like. You know how to come over him. He just hates me, and always did. He thinks of me as if I was scum beneath his feet." Jane's metaphor was mixed.
"It's your own fault," Mrs. Morris said shortly. "And if you don't look sharp, you'll get us all into trouble. I can tell you, he won't stand it. I know what he means. It's those Parkinses he don't like, that you're so thick with."
Jane snapped her fingers.
"I don't care that for him," she declared.
Unconscious of Jane's rebellious attitude, the Squire rode homeward; and half-way between Lynnbrooke and Lynnthorpe he came suddenly on Doris. She was seated meditatively by the roadside, her bicycle propped against the hedge. She was so engrossed she did not notice his approach till he dismounted.
"Are you coming to see Katherine? Is anything wrong with your machine?"