“Well?” said the squire, who was looking very intently into her face.

“I was thinking,” said Mrs Dale.  “Do you say that she has already refused him?”

“I am afraid she has; but then you know—­”

“It must of course be left for her to judge.”

“If you mean that she cannot be made to marry her cousin, of course we all know she can’t.”

“I mean rather more than that.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“That the matter must be left altogether to her own decision; that no persuasion must be used by you or me.  If he can persuade her, indeed—­”

“Yes, exactly.  He must persuade her.  I quite agree with you that he should have liberty to plead his own cause.  But look you here, Mary;—­she has always been a very good child to you—­”

“Indeed she has.”

“And a word from you would go a long way with her,—­as it ought.  If she knows that you would like her to marry her cousin, it will make her think it her duty—­”

“Ah! but that is just what I cannot try to make her think.”

“Will you let me speak, Mary?  You take me up and scold me before the words are half out of my mouth.  Of course I know that in these days a young lady is not to be compelled into marrying anybody;—­not but that, as far as I can see, they did better than they do now when they had not quite so much of their own way.”

“I never would take upon myself to ask a child to marry any man.”

“But you may explain to her that it is her duty to give such a proposal much thought before it is absolutely refused.  A girl either is in love or she is not.  If she is, she is ready to jump down a man’s throat; and that was the case with Lily.”

“She never thought of the man till he had proposed to her fully.”

“Well, never mind now.  But if a girl is not in love, she thinks she is bound to swear and declare that she never will be so.”

“I don’t think Bell ever declared anything of the kind.”

“Yes, she did.  She told Bernard that she didn’t love him and couldn’t love him,—­and, in fact, that she wouldn’t think anything more about it.  Now, Mary, that’s what I call being headstrong and positive.  I don’t want to drive her, and I don’t want you to drive her.  But here is an arrangement which for her will be a very good one; you must admit that.  We all know that she is on excellent terms with Bernard.  It isn’t as though they had been falling out and hating each other all their lives.  She told him that she was very fond of him, and talked nonsense about being his sister, and all that.”

“I don’t see that it was nonsense at all.”

“Yes, it was nonsense,—­on such an occasion.  If a man asks a girl to marry him, he doesn’t want her to talk to him about being his sister.  I think it is nonsense.  If she would only consider about it properly she would soon learn to love him.”

“That lesson, if it be learned at all, must be learned without any tutor.”