Now that harvest was over and Captain Rexford was more at leisure, Sophia felt that she must no longer postpone the disagreeable duty of speaking to him seriously about his younger daughters.  She chose an hour on Sunday when he and she were walking together to a distant point on the farm.  She told the story of the flirtation of poor little Blue and Red slightly, for she felt that to slight it as much as possible was to put it in its true proportion.

“Yes,” said Captain Rexford.  He took off his hat and brushed back his hair nervously.  He had many difficulties in his life.  “Yes, and then there is Winifred.”

“Girls here are not kept always under the eye of older people, as is usually considered necessary in England; but then they learn from their infancy to be more self-reliant.  We have taken the safeguards of governess and schoolroom suddenly from children almost grown-up, and set them where no one has had time to look after them.  They would need to have been miraculously wise if, with time on their hands, they had not spent some of it absurdly.”

“Yes,” he said again unhappily, “what must we do about it, my dear?  Your hands are already full.”  He always leaned on Sophia.

“I fear there is only one thing to do.  We cannot give them society; we cannot give them further education; they must have the poor woman’s protection—­work—­to take up their time and thoughts.  We have saved them from hard work until now, and it has not been true kindness.”

He did not answer.  He believed what she said, but the truth was very disagreeable to him.  When he spoke again he had left that subject.

“I am sorry for this affair about the Trenholmes.  I like Trenholme, and, of course, he has shown himself able to rise.  The younger fellow is plain and bluff, like enough to what he is.”

“His manners are perfectly simple, but I—­I certainly never imagined—­”

“Oh, certainly not; otherwise, you would hardly have received him as you did.  For us men, of course, in this country—­” He gave a dignified wave of his hand.

“Are you sure of that, papa,—­that I would not have received him?” It was exactly what she had been saying to herself for days; but, now that another said it, the sentiment involved seemed weak.

“I am aware”—­his tone was resigned—­“that your opinions are always more radical than I can approve.  The extreme always seems to have, shall I say, some attraction for you; but still, my daughter, I believe you are not lacking in proper pride.”

“I am too proud to think that for a good many days I have liked a man who was not fit for my liking.  I prefer to believe that he is fit until I can have more conclusive proof to the contrary.”

Captain Rexford walked some minutes in sterner silence.  He had long ceased to regard Sophia as under his authority.

“Still I hope, my dear, the next time you see this young man—­rudeness, of course, being impossible to you, and unnecessary—­still I hope you will allow your manner to indicate that a certain distance must be preserved.”