'Or that you particularly relish life in Mergatroyd.'
'I hate the place.'
'I am quite willing to undertake the management of the factory, at first provisionally, till some arrangement has been come to between us. As soon as the administration is granted, we shall consider the division of the estate, and deduct equally from our several shares that portion which we have resolved to offer to Miss Cusworth.'
'As you please,' said Mrs. Sidebottom sulkily. 'But you treat me abominably. However—now, I suppose, unopposed by you—I can ask for right to administer?'
'Yes—on the conditions to which you have agreed.'
'Wait—this house is mine, I suppose. Then I will clear it of those who are odious to me.'
She started from her seat and left the room.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE.
What had become in the meantime of Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick, over whose leavings such a dispute was being waged? We left him clinging to the head of a Lombardy poplar that was being swept down the valley of the Keld by the flood.