While the Hall, in Sir Henry’s time, remained childless, the lodge prided itself on a boy and two girls.  Young Rockett, something of a scapegrace, was by the baronet’s advice sent to sea, and thenceforth gave his parents no trouble.  The second daughter, Betsy, grew up to be her mother’s help.  But Betsy’s elder sister showed from early years that the life of the lodge would afford no adequate scope for her ambitions.  May Rockett had good looks; what was more, she had an intellect which sharpened itself on everything with which it came in contact.  The village school could never have been held responsible for May Rockett’s acquirements and views at the age of ten; nor could the High School in the neighbouring town altogether account for her mental development at seventeen.  Not without misgivings had the health-broken gardener and his wife consented to May’s pursuit of the higher learning; but Sir Henry and the kind old Lady Shale seemed to think it the safer course, and evidently there was little chance of the girl’s accepting any humble kind of employment:  in one way or another she must depend for a livelihood upon her brains.  At the time of Sir Edwin’s succession Miss Rockett had already obtained a place as governess, giving her parents to understand that this was only, of course, a temporary expedient—­a paving of the way to something vaguely, but superbly, independent.  Nor was promotion long in coming.  At two-and-twenty May accepted a secretaryship to a lady with a mission—­concerning the rights of womanhood.  In letters to her father and mother she spoke much of the importance of her work, but did not confess how very modest was her salary.  A couple of years went by without her visiting the old home; then, of a sudden, she made known her intention of coming to stay at the lodge ’for a week or ten days.’  She explained that her purpose was rest; intellectual strain had begun rather to tell upon her, and a few days of absolute tranquillity, such as she might expect under the elms of Brent Hall, would do her all the good in the world.  ‘Of course,’ she added, ’it’s unnecessary to say anything about me to the Shale people.  They and I have nothing in common, and it will be better for us to ignore each other’s existence.’

These characteristic phrases troubled Mr. and Mrs. Rockett.  That the family at the Hall should, if it seemed good to them, ignore the existence of May was, in the Rocketts’ view, reasonable enough; but for May to ignore Sir Edwin and Lady Shale, who were just now in residence after six months spent abroad, struck them as a very grave impropriety.  Natural respect demanded that, at some fitting moment, and in a suitable manner, their daughter should present herself to her feudal superiors, to whom she was assuredly indebted, though indirectly, for ‘the blessings she enjoyed.’  This was Mrs. Rockett’s phrase, and the rheumatic, wheezy old gardener uttered the same opinion in less conventional language.