‘What will it matter if he does sell them?’

’Matter!  Do you think there is a single person in the county who will not know that his doing is a sign that he has quarrelled with me?’

‘But he has not quarrelled with you.’

’I can tell you, then, that in that case, I shall have quarrelled with him!  I have not been a hard father, but there are some things which a man cannot bear.  Of course you take his part.’

‘I am taking no part.  I only want peace between you.’

’Peace!—­yes; peace indeed.  I am to yield in everything.  I am to be nobody.  Look here;—­as sure as ever an auctioneer’s hammer is raised at Cosby Lodge, I will alter the settlement of the property.  Every acre shall go to Charles.  There is my word for it.’  The poor woman had nothing more to say at that moment.  She thought that at the present conjuncture her husband was less in the wrong than her son, but she could not tell him so lest she should strengthen him in his wrath.

Henry Grantly found his grandfather in bed, with Posy seated on the bed beside him.  ’My father told me that you were not quite well, and I thought I had better look in,’ said the major.

’Thank you, my dear;—­it is very good of you.  There is not much the matter with me, but I am not quite so strong as I was once.’  And the old man smiled as he held his grandson’s hand.

‘And how is cousin Posy?’ said the major.

‘Posy is quite well;—­isn’t she, my darling?’ said the old man.

‘Grandpa doesn’t go to the cathedral now,’ said Posy; ’so I come in to talk to him.  Don’t I, grandpa?’

’And to play cat’s-cradle;—­only we have not had any cat’s-cradle this morning, because it is cold for grandpa to sit up in bed,’ said Posy.

When the major had been there about twenty minutes he was preparing to take his leave—­but Mr Harding, bidding Posy go out of the room, told his grandson that he had a word to say to him.  ’I don’t like to interfere, Henry,’ he said, ’but I am afraid things are not quite smooth at Plumstead.’

‘There is nothing wrong between me and my mother,’ said the major.

’God forbid that there should be; but, my dear boy, don’t let there be anything wrong between you and your father.  He is a good man, and the time will come when you will be proud of his memory.’

‘I am proud of him now.’

’Then be gentle with him—­and submit yourself.  I am an old man now—­very fast going away from all those I love here.  But I am happy in leaving my children because they have ever been gentle with me and kind.  If I am permitted to remember them whither I am going, my thoughts of them all will be pleasant.  Should it not be much to them that they have made by death-bed happy?’

The major could not but tell himself that Mr Harding had been a man easy to please, easy to satisfy, and, in that respect, very different from his father.  But of course he said nothing of this.  ‘I will do my best,’ he replied.