She was, however, silenced.
"Hear me, and if you can throw light after, Jane, we'll hear you," continued Mr. Bamsey. "I say what I think and believe. My trouble be still alive for John; but my fear be dead. So that leaves Dinah. Her wish and will is to be gone. She's seeking a proper and fitting place—neither too low nor too high. She'd go into service to-morrow—anywhere; but I won't have that."
"And why for not, father?" asked Mrs. Bamsey; "your first was in service once."
"That's different," he answered. "You must see it, mother. The situation is very tender, and you must remember my duty to the dead. Would Jane go into service?"
"No, I would not," answered Jane; "not for anybody. I'd go on the street first."
Mr. Chaffe was shocked.
"Do I hear you, Jane?" he asked.
"God forgive you, Jane," said her father; then he proceeded.
"My foster-daughter is a much more delicate and nice question than my own daughter; and mother, with her sharp understanding, knows it. From no love for Dinah I say so. She's a sacred trust, and if she was a bad girl, instead of a good one, still she'd be a sacred trust. I'm not standing here for my own sake, or for any selfishness. I've long been schooled to know she was going, as we all hoped, to Johnny. And go she must—for her own sake—and her own self-respect. And if anybody's fretting about her biding here, it's Dinah's self. But the work she must go to is the difficulty, and that work has not yet been found in my opinion. Her future hangs upon it and I must be head and obeyed in that matter."
"She's turned down such a lot of things," said Jane.