"Dead and gone and all but forgotten!"
"No, my lord; not for one day forgotten! not for one moment
unloved!"
"Ah, well, as you please! but because you love his memory must I
regard him as a Solon? 'T is surely no great treason to reflect upon
the wisdom of a dead man!"
"I wish you good day, my lord!" said Arctura, very angry, and left
him.
But when presently she found that she could not lift up her heart to
her father in heaven, gladly would she have sent her anger from her.
Was it not plainly other than good, when it came thus between her
and the living God! All day at intervals she had to struggle and
pray against it; a great part of the night she lay awake because of
it; but at length she pitied her uncle too much to be very angry
with him any more, and so fell asleep.
In the morning she found that all sense of his having authority over
her had vanished, and with it her anger. She saw also that it was
quite time she took upon herself the duties of a landowner. What
could Mr. Grant think of her--doing nothing for her people! But she
could do little while her uncle received the rents and gave orders
to Mr. Graeme! She would take the thing into her own hands! In the
meantime, Mr. Grant should, if he pleased, go on quietly with his
examination of the house.
But she could not get her interview with her uncle out of her head,
and was haunted with vague suspicions of some dreadful secret about
the house belonging to the present as well as the past.
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