"I've known Dr. Thorne for the last forty years;" and the squire now spoke in a low melancholy tone. "I've written to him to say that the young people shall have the old place up there to themselves if they like it."
"What! and turn you out?" said Mrs. Dale.
"That would not matter," said the squire.
"You'd have to come and live with us," said Lily, taking him by the hand.
"It doesn't matter much now where I live," said the squire.
"Bernard will never consent to that," said Mrs. Dale.
"I wonder whether she'll ask me to be a bridesmaid?" said Lily. "They say that Chaldicotes is such a pretty place, and I should see all the Barsetshire people that I've been hearing about from Grace. Poor Grace! I know that the Grantlys and the Thornes are very intimate. Fancy Bernard having twenty thousand pounds from the making of ointment!"
"What does it matter to you where it comes from?" said the squire, half in anger.
"Not in the least; only it sounds so odd. I do hope she's a nice girl."
Then the squire produced a photograph of Emily Dunstable which his nephew had sent to him, and they all pronounced her to be very pretty, to be very much like a lady, and to be very good-humoured. The squire was evidently pleased with the match, and therefore the ladies were pleased also. Bernard Dale was the heir to the estate, and his marriage was of course a matter of moment; and as on such properties as that of Allington money is always wanted, the squire may be forgiven for the great importance which he attached to the young lady's fortune. "Bernard could hardly have married prudently without any money," he said,—"unless he had chosen to wait till I am gone."