‘Don’t you mind, then, who has the estate?’
‘Yes, immensely,’ said Anne, with a smile. ‘I could not have thought I should mind half so much. I have felt the coming down and being second. But I am better again. You have a right to do what you please, and I shall not complain.’
He sat in his chair at his writing-table (in the drawer of which were still those two sealed packets) and looked at her with contemplative, yet somewhat abashed eyes. There was an unspeakable relief in being thus entirely reconciled to her, notwithstanding the sense of discomfiture and defeat it gave him. ‘Do you think—your sister—will be able to manage property?’ he said.
‘No doubt she will marry, papa.’
‘Ah!’ he had not thought of this somehow. ‘She will marry, and my substance will go into the hands of some stranger, some fellow I never heard of; that is a pleasant prospect: he will be a fool most likely, whether he is an adventurer or not.’
‘We must all take our chance, I suppose,’ said Anne, with a little tremor in her voice. She knew the adventurer was levelled at herself. ‘I suppose you have made it a condition that he shall take the name of Mountford, papa?’
He made her no reply, but looked up suddenly with a slight start. Oddly enough he had made no stipulation in respect to Rose. It had never occurred to him that it was of the slightest importance what name Rose’s husband should bear. He gave Anne a sudden startled look; then, for he would not commit himself, changed the subject abruptly. After this interval of estrangement it was so great a pleasure to talk to Anne about the family affairs. ‘What do you think,’ he said, ‘about Heathcote’s proposal, Anne?’
‘I should have liked to jump at it, papa. Mount in our own family! it seemed too good to be true.’
‘Seemed! you speak as if it were in the past. I have not said no yet. I have still got the offer in my power. Mount in our own family! but we have not got a family—a couple of girls!’
‘If we had not been a couple of girls there would have been no trouble about the entail,’ said Anne, permitting herself a laugh. ‘And of course Rose’s husband——’