“Come, Stephen Radcliffe, you must make Annet some allowance,” said the Squire, after taking a long draught and finding the cider uncommonly sour. “The neighbours will cry out upon you if you don’t.”
“The neighbours can do as they choose.”
“Just take this much into consideration. If that little child of theirs had lived, the money would have been his.”
“But he didn’t live,” argued Stephen.
“I know he didn’t—more’s the pity. He’d have been a consolation to her, poor thing. Come! you can’t, I say, take all from her and leave her with nothing.”
“Nothing! Hasn’t she got the farm-stock and the furniture? She’s all that to the good. ’Twas bought with Frank’s money.”
“No, it was not. Half the money was hers. Look here. Unless she gets help somewhere, I don’t see how she is to stay on at Pitchley’s.”
“And ’twould be a sight better for her not to stay on at Pitchley’s,” retorted Stephen. “Let her go back to her mother’s again, over in the other parish. Or let her emigrate. Lots of folks is emigrating now.”
“This won’t do, Stephen Radcliffe,” said the Squire, beginning to lose his temper. “You can’t for shame bring every one down upon your head. Allow her a trifle, man, out of the income that has lapsed to you: let the world have to say that you are generous for once.”