"Oh, yes;—but I can fight the battle better, having told her everything."
"Was she disagreeable?"
"Abominable! She mixed you up with Marion Fay, and really showed more readiness than I gave her credit for in what she said. Of course she got the better of me. She could call me a liar and a fool to my face, and I could not retaliate. But there's a row in the house which makes everything wretched there."
"Another row?"
"You are forgotten in this new row,—and so am I. George Roden and Marion Fay are nothing in comparison with poor Mr. Greenwood. He has been committing horrible offences, and is to be turned out. He swears he won't go, and my father is determined he shall. Mr. Roberts has been called in, and there is a question whether Harris shall not put him on gradually diminished rations till he be starved into surrender. He's to have £200 a year if he goes, but he says that it is not enough for him."
"Would it be much?"
"Considering that he likes to have everything of the very best I do not think it would. He would probably have to go to prison or else hang himself."
"Won't it be rather hard upon him?"
"I think it will. I don't know what it is that makes the governor so hard to him. I begged and prayed for another hundred a year as though he were the dearest friend I had in the world; but I couldn't turn the governor an inch. I don't think I ever disliked any one so much in the world as I do Mr. Greenwood."
"Not Mr. Crocker?" she asked.