‘I’ve no more to say,’ fell from their father at length.  ’Go and talk about it together, if you like.’

Horace moved sullenly towards the door, and with a glance at his sister went out.  Nancy, after lingering for a moment, spoke.

‘I don’t think you need have any fear of it, father.’

’Perhaps not.  But if it isn’t that one, it’ll be another like her.  There’s not much choice for a lad like Horace.’

Nancy changed her purpose of leaving the room, and drew a step nearer.

‘Don’t you think there might have been?’

Mr. Lord turned to look at her.

‘How?  What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to make you angry with me—­’

‘Say what you’ve got to say,’ broke in her father impatiently.

‘It isn’t easy, when you so soon lose your temper.’

’My girl,’—­for once he gazed at her directly,—­’if you knew all I have gone through in life, you wouldn’t wonder at my temper being spoilt.—­What do you mean?  What could I have done?’

She stood before him, and spoke with diffidence.

’Don’t you think that if we had lived in a different way, Horace and I might have had friends of a better kind?’

’A different way?—­I understand.  You mean I ought to have had a big house, and made a show.  Isn’t that it?’

‘You gave us a good education,’ replied Nancy, still in the same tone, ’and we might have associated with very different people from those you have been speaking of; but education alone isn’t enough.  One must live as the better people do.’

’Exactly.  That’s your way of thinking.  And how do you know that I could afford it, to begin with?’

‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have taken that for granted.’

’Perhaps not.  Young women take a good deal for granted now a-days.  But supposing you were right, are you silly enough to think that richer people are better people, as a matter of course?’

‘Not as a matter of course,’ said Nancy.  ’But I’m quite sure—­I know from what I’ve seen—­that there’s more chance of meeting nice people among them.’

‘What do you mean by “nice"?’ Mr. Lord was lying back in his chair, and spoke thickly, as if wearied.  ’People who can talk so that you forget they’re only using words they’ve learnt like parrots?’

’No.  Just the contrary.  People who have something to say worth listening to.’

’If you take my advice, you’ll pay less attention to what people say, and more to what they do.  What’s the good of a friend who won’t come to see you because you live in a small house?  That’s the plain English of it.  If I had done as I thought right, I should never have sent you to school at all.  I should have had you taught at home all that’s necessary to make a good girl and an honest woman, and have done my best to keep you away from the kind of life that I hate.  But I hadn’t the courage to act as I believed.