'I do not know—half a year, I fancy. You think we ought to give it up? I suppose it is too large for us now.'
'And you could take no lodger but one of the old-lady type.'
'Horrid!' said Felix. 'Well, we will see; but it will be a great stroke on poor Cherry—she can remember nothing before this house.'
'It will be very good for her to have no old associations to sit brooding over.'
'My poor little Cherry! If I saw how to cheer up her life; but without your lessons it will be more dreary for her than ever!'
'Give her all you can to do, and do not be over-careful to keep your anxieties from her knowledge. She is very much of a woman, and if you leave her too much to herself, she will grow more introspective.'
'Wilmet and I have always wanted to shelter her; she never seems fit for trouble, and she is so young!'
'Compared with you two venerable people!' said Mr. Audley, smiling. 'But her mind is not young, and to treat her as a child is the way to make her prey upon herself. I wish her talent could be more cultivated; but meantime nothing is better for her than the care of Bernard and Stella. I hope you will not be in a hurry to promote them out of her hands.'
'Very well; but she will miss you sorely.'
'I hope to see her brightened before I am really gone, and I am not going to decamp from this house till some natural break comes. To do that would be absurd!'