“Answer him kindly,” Mrs Dale said.

“As kindly as I know how,” said Bell.  “I wish you would write the letter, mamma.”

“I fear that would not do.  What I should say would only tempt him to try again.”

Mrs Dale knew very well,—­had known for some months past,—­that Bernard’s suit was hopeless.  She felt certain, although the matter had not been discussed between them, that whenever Dr Crofts might choose to come again and ask for her daughter’s hand he would not be refused.  Of the two men she probably liked Dr Crofts the best; but she liked them both, and she could not but remember that the one, in a worldly point of view, would be a very poor match, whereas the other would, in all respects, be excellent.  She would not, on any account, say a word to influence her daughter, and knew, moreover, that no word which she could say would influence her; but she could not divest herself of some regret that it should be so.

“I know what you would wish, mamma,” said Bell.

“I have but one wish, dearest, and that is for your happiness.  May God preserve you from any such fate as Lily’s.  When I tell you to write kindly to your cousin, I simply mean that I think him to have deserved a kind reply by his honesty.”

“It shall be as kind as I can make it, mamma; but you know what the lady says in the play,—­how hard it is to take the sting from that word ‘no.’” Then Bell walked out alone for a while, and on her return got her desk and wrote her letter.  It was very firm and decisive.  As for that wit which should pluck the sting “from such a sharp and waspish word as ‘no,’” I fear she had it not.  “It will be better to make him understand that I, also, am in earnest,” she said to herself; and in this frame of mind she wrote her letter.  “Pray do not allow yourself to think that what I have said is unfriendly,” she added, in a postscript.  “I know how good you are, and I know the great value of what I refuse; but in this matter it must be my duty to tell you the simple truth.”

It had been decided between the squire and Mrs Dale that the removal from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the first of May.  When he had been made to understand that Dr Crofts had thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master to induce Mrs Dale to consent to abandon her project.  He had told her that he had always considered that house as belonging, of right, to some other of the family than himself; that it had always been so inhabited, and that no squire of Allington had for years past taken rent for it.  “There is no favour conferred,—­none at all,” he had said; but speaking nevertheless in his usual sharp, ungenial tone.

“There is a favour, a great favour, and great generosity,” Mrs Dale had replied.  “And I have never been too proud to accept it; but when I tell you that we think we shall be happier at Guestwick, you will not refuse to let us go.  Lily has had a great blow in that house, and Bell feels that she is running counter to your wishes on her behalf,—­wishes that are so very kind!”