'Nothing of consequence.'
'Did he not propose?'
'Papa, how can you think of such a thing? He is a veritable Grandfather Whitehead.'
'Think of happiness,' said her father, sharply.
'Has wealth aught to do with that?'
'A good deal—if not all. Think of living in a house like that we have just left! Think of presentation days, collar days, at Buckingham Palace, the Park, the Row, the Four-in-Hand Club by the Serpentine—luncheons at Muswell Hill, and so forth!'
Alison was silent, but full of sad and bitter thoughts.
Around her—or within her reach—she knew were gaieties in which she could have no part—the opera, the Row, the Queen's drawing-room, to which, notwithstanding her real social position, she could no more have access (without the aid of a most trustful milliner), than the daughter of a clown. But she did not repine, as her father did, that she should be debarred from all these sights and circles, so she replied,
'Papa, as I have often said, one can live without these accessories and surroundings. I have before urged you to quit even Chilcote, and let us go home—home to Essilmont—or what remains of it,' she added, in a broken voice, as she thought of Bevil Goring, and how a new light, bright as summer sunshine, had fallen on her life at Chilcote now.
'Home!' exclaimed her father, bitterly, 'home to the crumbling mansion amid the bleak braes where the Ythan flows, to be a source of local marvel and pity in our impoverished state. No—no! better our obscurity in Hampshire; who cares about us here, or thinks about us at all, unless it's Cadbury, who—who——'