"Besides," pursued the Squire in his loud, resolute voice, "there's the dower-house standing empty now. If Dick were to get married soon I need not bother about finding a tenant for it. I don't want to let it; it's too near here. If we got people there we didn't like it would be an infernal nuisance. Eh, Nina? What were you saying?"
"I am sorry to say," said Mrs. Clinton, "that Miss Bird is going to leave us."
The Squire was just about to put a piece of toast into his mouth, which was half open for its reception. It remained half open while he looked at his wife, the toast arrested halfway. "Miss Bird! Leave us!" he exclaimed when he had found his voice. He could hardly have been more astounded if his wife had announced that she was going to leave him, and indeed Miss Bird had lived at Kencote nearly as long as Mrs. Clinton, and had initiated into the mysteries of learning all the young Clintons, from Dick, who was now thirty-four, down to the twins, Joan and Nancy, who were fifteen.
"She has talked about it for some time," said Mrs. Clinton. "She has felt that the children were getting beyond her, and ought to have better teaching than she can give them."
"Oh, stuff and nonsense!" exclaimed the Squire. "I don't want the children turned into blue-stockings. I'm quite satisfied with what Miss Bird is doing for them, and if she wants telling so, for goodness' sake tell her, and let's have no more of such rubbish. Miss Bird indeed! Who's she to upset the whole house?"
"I am afraid she has determined to go, Edward," said Mrs. Clinton in her equable voice. "Her invalid sister, you know, has lost her husband, and there is no one else to look after her."
The Squire grunted. "Well, if that's the reason," he said, rather grudgingly, "I suppose we can't complain, although it's a most infernal nuisance. I've got used to Miss Bird. She's a silly old creature in some respects, but she's faithful and honest. Now we shall have to get used to somebody else. Really, when one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. Life is hardly worth living with all these worries. One never seems to get a moment's peace. I'm going into my room now, Nina, to read the paper for a bit."
"I should like to talk to you for a few minutes longer about the children," said Mrs. Clinton. "As a change has to be made, I want to make a thorough one. It is quite true that they are beyond Miss Bird, even if she could have stayed. I should like to send them to a good school for two or three years, and then to France or Germany for a year."
The Squire bent his brows in an amazed frown. "What on earth can you be thinking of, Nina?" he exclaimed. "France or Germany? Nice healthy English girls—teach 'em to eat frogs and horse-sausage—pick up a lot of affected nonsense! You can put that idea out of your head at once."
Mrs. Clinton's calm face flushed. "There is no need to talk of that for two or three years," she said. "I should like them now—when Miss Bird leaves us—to go to a really good school in England, where they can learn something."