"But Brotherton does not want them to go there," said Lord George, almost in a whisper.
"Does not want your mother to live in her own house! Upon my word the Marquis is considerate to you all! He has said that plainly, has he? If I were Lady Brotherton I would not take the slightest heed of what he says. She is not dependent on him. In order that he may be relieved from the bore of being civil to his own family she is to be sent out about the world to look for a home in her old age! You must tell her not to listen for a minute to such a proposition."
Lord George, though he put great trust in his father-in-law, did not quite like hearing his brother spoken of so very freely by a man
who was, after all, the son of a tradesman. It seemed to him as though the Dean made himself almost too intimate with the affairs at Manor Cross, and yet he was obliged to go on and tell the Dean everything.
"Even if Price went, there must be some delay in getting the house ready."
"The Marquis surely won't turn your mother out before the spring?"
"Tradesmen will have to come in. And then I don't quite know what we are to do as to the——expense of furnishing the new house. It will cost a couple of thousand pounds, and none of us have ready money." The Dean assumed a very serious face. "Every spoon and fork at Manor Cross, every towel and every sheet belongs to my brother."
"Was not the Cross House ever furnished?"
"Many years ago; in my grandmother's time. My father left money for the purpose, but it was given up to my sister Alice when she married Holdenough." He found himself explaining all the little intricacies of his family to the Dean, because it was necessary that he should hold council with some one. "I was thinking of a furnished house for them elsewhere."
"In London?"