Master Gammon met them in the garden.

Pointing aloft, over the gateway, “That’s down,” he remarked, and the three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one another with a bare bitter smile.  Once it would have been mirth.

“Tell father,” Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip.  Rhoda tried to detain her; but Dahlia repeated, “Tell father,” and in strength and in will had become more than a match for her sister.

CHAPTER XLV

Rhoda spoke to her father from the doorway, with her hand upon the lock of the door.

At first he paid little attention to her, and, when he did so, began by saying that he hoped she knew that she was bound to have the young squire, and did not intend to be prankish and wilful; because the young squire was eager to settle affairs, that he might be settled himself.  “I don’t deny it’s honour to us, and it’s a comfort,” said the farmer.  “This is the first morning I’ve thought easily in my chair for years.  I’m sorry about Robert, who’s a twice unlucky ’un; but you aimed at something higher, I suppose.”

Rhoda was prompted to say a word in self-defence, but refrained, and again she told Dahlia’s story, wondering that her father showed no excitement of any kind.  On the contrary, there was the dimple of one of his voiceless chuckles moving about the hollow of one cheek, indicating some slow contemplative action that was not unpleasant within.  He said:  “Ah! well, it’s very sad;—­that is, if ’tis so,” and no more, for a time.

She discovered that he was referring to her uncle Anthony, concerning whose fortunate position in the world, he was beginning to entertain some doubts.  “Or else,” said the farmer, with a tap on his forehead, “he’s going here.  It ’d be odd after all, if commercially, as he ’d call it, his despised brother-in-law—­and I say it in all kindness—­should turn out worth, not exactly millions, but worth a trifle.”

The farmer nodded with an air of deprecating satisfaction.

Rhoda did not gain his ear until, as by an instinct, she perceived what interest the story of her uncle and the money-bags would have for him.  She related it, and he was roused.  Then, for the third time, she told him of Dahlia.

Rhoda saw her father’s chest grow large, while his eyes quickened with light.  He looked on her with quite a strange face.  Wrath, and a revived apprehension, and a fixed will were expressed in it, and as he catechized her for each particular of the truth which had been concealed from him, she felt a respectfulness that was new in her personal sensations toward her father, but it was at the expense of her love.

When he had heard and comprehended all, he said, “Send the girl down to me.”