"What's that?"
"Oh, it's no concern of mine, sir. If folks can't manage for themselves, they need not come to me to help them."
Mr. Ashley looked keenly at his son. Henry passed to another topic.
"Do send him here, sir, when you get in; or else drive him back with you."
"I shall see," said Mr. Ashley. "Do you know where your mother went to?"
"After some domestic catastrophe, I expect. Martha came to the door, with a face as green as the peacock's tail, and beckoned her out. The best dinner-service come to grief, perhaps."
Mr. Ashley rang, and ordered the pony-carriage to be got ready: one bought chiefly for Henry, that he might drive into town. Before he started, he came across Mary, who stood at one of the corridor windows upstairs, and had evidently been crying.
"What is your grief, Mary?"
She turned to the sheltering arm open to her, and tried to choke the tears down, which were again rising. "I wish you and mamma would not keep so angry at my refusing Sir Harry Marr."
"Who told you I was angry, Mary?"