East; they seemed to have the secret of my father.  Blank enough they looked if ever I despaired of their knowing more than I. My Winter and Summer were the moods of my mind constantly shifting.  I would have a week of the belief that he was near Riversley, calling for me; a week of the fear that he was dead; long dreams of him, as travelling through foreign countries, patting the foreheads of boys and girls on his way; or driving radiantly, and people bowing.  Radiantly, I say:  had there been touches of colour in these visions, I should have been lured off in pursuit of him.  The dreams passed colourlessly; I put colouring touches to the figures seen in them afterward, when I was cooler, and could say, ’What is the use of fancying things?’ yet knew that fancying things was a consolation.  By such means I came to paint the mystery surrounding my father in tender colours.  I built up a fretted cathedral from what I imagined of him, and could pass entirely away out of the world by entering the doors.

Want of boys’ society as well as hard head-work produced this mischief.  My lessons were intermittent Resident tutors arrived to instruct me, one after another.  They were clergymen, and they soon proposed to marry my aunt Dorothy, or they rebuked the squire for swearing.  The devil was in the parsons, he said:  in his time they were modest creatures and stuck to the bottle and heaven.  My aunt was of the opinion of our neighbours, who sent their boys to school and thought I should be sent likewise.

‘No, no,’ said the squire; ’my life’s short when the gout’s marching up to my middle, and I’ll see as much of my heir as I can.  Why, the lad’s my daughter’s son:  He shall grow up among his tenantry.  We’ll beat the country and start a man at last to drive his yard of learning into him without rolling sheep’s eyes right and left.’

Unfortunately the squire’s description of man was not started.  My aunt was handsome, an heiress (that is, she had money of her own coming from her mother’s side of the family), and the tenderest woman alive, with a voice sweeter than flutes.  There was a saying in the county that to marry a Beltham you must po’chay her.

A great-aunt of mine, the squire’s sister, had been carried off.  She died childless.  A favourite young cousin of his likewise had run away with a poor baronet, Sir Roderick Ilchester, whose son Charles was now and then our playmate, and was a scapegrace.  But for me he would have been selected by the squire for his heir, he said; and he often ‘confounded’ me to my face on that account as he shook my hand, breaking out:  ‘I’d as lief fetch you a cuff o’ the head, Harry Richmond, upon my honour!’ and cursing at his luck for having to study for his living, and be what he called a sloppy curate now that I had come to Riversley for good.

He informed me that I should have to marry his sister Janet; for that they could not allow the money to go out of the family.  Janet Ilchester was a quaint girl, a favourite of my aunt Dorothy, and the squire’s especial pet; red-cheeked, with a good upright figure in walking and riding, and willing to be friendly, but we always quarrelled:  she detested hearing of Kiomi.