"She has not," replied Mr. Bamsey. "She'd do anything and take anything to-morrow. She was at me to let her go for barmaid to the Blue Lion at Totnes. And I said, 'No, Dinah; you shan't go nowhere as barmaid while I live.' And I say it again, meaning no disrespect to the Blue Lion, which is a very good licensed house."
"She's of age, and if she was in earnest, she could have gone, whether you liked it or not," said Jane.
Mr. Bamsey grew a little flushed and regarded his daughter without affection.
"You would—not Dinah," he answered. "Dinah looks to me as her father, and she won't do nothing I don't hold with, or take any step contrary to my view. That's because she's got a righter idea of what a girl owes her father than you have, Jane."
"And what is your view, father?" asked Mrs. Bamsey.
"You know, mother. I want for Dinah to go into a nice family, where the people will receive her as one of themselves, and where she'll take her place and do her proper work and go on with her life in a Christian manner, and not feel she's sunk in the world, or an outcast, but just doing her right share of work, and being treated as the child of a man in my position have a right to expect to be treated."
"You won't find no such place, father," said Jane.
"I hope we shall. She's out to Ponsworthy with Mrs. Bassett to-day; and the Bassetts are God-fearing people in our own station of life."
"If she was to go there, she'd only be nursemaid to four young children," declared Faith.
"Then, if that's all there is to it, she won't go there," answered Ben.