"Mr. Price was quite willing to go," said Lady Susanna.
"I dare say. I trust he may be as willing to give up the land when his lease is out. I have been told that he is a sporting friend of the Dean's. It seems to me that you have, all of you, got into a nice mess here by yourselves. All I want you to understand is that I cannot now trouble myself about you."
"You don't mean to give us up," said the afflicted mother. "You'll come and see me sometimes, won't you?"
"Certainly not, if I am to be insulted by my sister."
"I have insulted no one," said Lady Sarah, haughtily.
"It was no insult to tell me that I ought to have stayed in Italy, and not have come to my own house!"
"Sarah, you ought not to have said that," exclaimed the Marchioness.
"He complained that everything here was uncomfortable, and therefore I said it. He knows that I did not speak of his return in any other sense. Since he settled himself abroad there has not been a day on which I have not wished that he would come back to his own house and his own duties. If he will treat us properly, no one will treat him with higher consideration than I. But we have our own rights as well as he, and are as well able to guard them."
"Sarah can preach as well as ever," he said.
"Oh! my children,—oh! my children!" sobbed the old lady.