"Mr. Goldsmith," said Philip, after his pause of amazement, "we are making this arrangement chiefly on Martin's account. It is true Miss Dorothy loves this house, where she was born, and would rather live here than anywhere else; but she knows it can never be ours. We think of building another house in this neighborhood."
"Ay!" interrupted Andrew again, "with the money left by Sir John Martin to build a place suitable for his heir. But Martin is his heir. I am not too old to see that he has his rights. What you say sounds all very well; but there's nobody but me to see the poor lad gets his own. I'm sorry to gainsay you, Mr. Philip, but you cannot come to live here in my grandson's house. He must be master, and nobody else."
"Not for his own good?" asked Philip. "He cannot be master, for he does not know how to give an order to any servant. He will learn in time, if we take him in hand. We thought you and Mary would be glad to return to Apley, for you are among total strangers here; and Rachel is going to live with us as housekeeper."
"Ah!" cried Andrew, with a long-drawn accent of suspicion and contempt, "Rachel would do anything to serve you. I should soon hear that Martin had signed his rights away. I couldn't trust Sophy's son with Rachel when it was you he had to be unsaddled for. No; it shall never be. I'll stay by Martin as long as I live; and nobody else shall be master or mistress in his house."
"Martin," said Philip, stooping down to his brother again, and speaking in the simple Italian words he understood, "I am going to marry the signorina. Would you like us to come here, and live with you always?"
Martin repeated the words slowly to himself in a whisper; and slowly the expression of his heavy face turned into a smile so wistful and pathetic that it made Philip's heart ache. It was the smile of a soul that sees afar off the glory and blissful ness of a life from which it is shut out, but which it gazes at with distant and ignorant sympathy.
"Yes, yes, my brother!" he answered.
"I don't know what you say to him," said Andrew jealously; "but he's more simple than a child; you may do what you like with him. But you won't take me in; neither you nor your father. Here Martin is, and here he stays."
"We wish him to stay here," replied Philip. "We are coming chiefly for his sake."
"But I say you shall not come," persisted Andrew. "I'm his only guardian, and I'll defend his rights. Come in Philip—turn out Martin. That's how it will be; and I put down my foot against it. Here Martin stops, and here I stop; and nobody else comes in as master."