"You told him that I had complained about you being here."
"So you did. I had to tell him so, or I could not explain my purpose. Of course I am a burden. Every human being who eats and wears clothes and earns nothing is a burden. And I know that this is thought of the more because it had been felt that I had been—been disposed of."
"You could be disposed of now, as you call it, if you pleased."
"But I do not please. That is a matter on which I will listen to no dictation. Therefore it is that I wish that I could go away and earn my own bread. I choose to be independent in that matter, and therefore I ought to suffer for it. It is reasonable enough that I should be felt to be a burden."
Then the other girls came in, and nothing more was said till, after an hour or two, Mrs Brodrick and Isabel were again alone together.
"I do think it very odd that you cannot take that money; I certainly do," said Mrs Brodrick.
"What is the use of going on about it? I shall not be made to take it."
"And all those people at Carmarthen so sure that you are entitled to ever so much more! I say nothing about burdens, but I cannot conceive how you can reconcile it to your conscience when your poor papa has got so many things to pay, and is so little able to pay them."
Then she paused, but as Isabel would not be enticed into any further declaration of independence, she continued, "It certainly is a setting up of your own judgment against people who must know better. As for Mr Owen, of course it will drive him to look for some one else. The young man wants a wife, and of course he will find one. Then that chance will be lost."
In this way Isabel did not pass her time comfortably at Hereford.