“Alice!”

“I meant no harm, squire, I’m sure; and I would not say wrong of the dead for any thing, specially of your mother; but I think about my own girls.”

“There, now, Alice, don’t whimper and cry.  I am not going to harm your girls, not I. Only mother was promised that Tom’s son should have the first chance for their favor.  I’m sure there’s nothing amiss in that.  Eh?”

“A young man born in a foreign country among blacks, or very near blacks.  And nobody knows who his mother was.”

“Oh, yes! his mother was a judge’s daughter, and she had a deal of money.  Her son has been well done to; sent to the very best German and French schools, and now he is at Oxford.  I dare say he is a very good young man, and at any rate he is the only Sandal of this generation except our own boy.”

“Your sisters have sons.”

“Yes, Mary has three:  they are Lockerbys.  Elizabeth has two:  they are Piersons.  My poor brother Launcie was drowned, and never had son or daughter; so that Tom’s Julius is the nearest blood we have.”

“Julius!  I never heard tell of such a name.”

“Yes, it is a silly kind of a foreign name.  His mother is called Julia:  I suppose that is how it comes.  No Sandal was ever called such a name before, but the young man mustn’t be blamed for his godfather’s foolishness, Alice.  Eh?”

“I’m not so unjust.  Poor Launcie!  I saw him once at a ball in Kendal.  Are you sure he was drowned?”

“I followed him to Whitehaven, and found out that he had gone away in a ship that never came home.  Mother and Launcie were in bad bread when he left, and she never fretted for him as she did for Tom.”

“Why did you not tell me all this before?”

“I said to myself, there’s time enough yet to be planning husbands for girls that haven’t a thought of the kind.  We were very happy with them; I couldn’t bear to break things up; and I never once feared about Steve Latrigg, not I.”

“What does your brother and his wife say?”

“Tom is with me.  As for his wife, I know nothing of her, and she knows nothing of us.  She has been in England a good many times, but she never said she would like to come and see us, and my mother never wanted to see her; so there wasn’t a compliment wasted, you see.  Eh?  What?”

“No, I don’t see, William.  All about it is in a muddle, and I must say I never heard tell of such ways.  It is like offering your own flesh and blood for sale.  And to people who want nothing to do with us.  I’m astonished at you, squire.”

“Don’t go on so, Alice.  Tom and I never had any falling out.  He just got out of the way of writing.  He likes India, and he had his own reasons for not liking England in any shape you could offer England to him.  There’s no back reckonings between Tom and me, and he’ll be glad for Julius to come to his own people.  We will ask Julius to Sandal; and you say, yourself, that the half of young folks’ loving is in being handy to each other.  Eh?  What?”