Mrs. Dale nodded her head very thoughtfully. She was experienced in the management of children, and in her own nursery had always laboured to maintain strict discipline, but she knew well the disadvantages which attend a rich man’s son and heir. She sat for a few moments, turning over the matter in her mind, as though the expression of her opinion on the subject could influence the future of the spoilt child of fortune. Then, with the decision of one who has maturely considered a difficult question, and has come to a satisfactory conclusion, she said, “If I were Lady Grange I know what I’d do. I’d send the boy to my own old home. Her brothers are both men of sense and spirit, who would stand no nonsense; and if they didn’t bring the young pickle to his senses, why I’m greatly mistaken in the matter.”
“Her brothers!” exclaimed cook and lady’s-maid in a breath. “Why,” said the butler, “don’t you know that neither of them ever enters this house?”
Mrs. Dale lifted up her hands in amazement; “Lady Grange quarrelled with her own brothers! impossible!”
“Oh! it’s not mistress, but master. The worry and the distress which she has had no words can tell. Why, I don’t believe that she may so much as write to her old home!”
“Dear! dear!” exclaimed the old nurse, looking really concerned; “and they were such a happy, united family; it was quite a picture to see them! Miss Clara was the darling of the house; her brothers never thought that they could make enough of their pet. Sure it must be just a heartbreak to her to be on bad terms with them now! How could such a shocking thing have happened?”
“Why, you see,” said the butler, laying the finger of his right hand on the palm of his left, and lowering his voice to a more confidential though not less audible tone, “you see it was all along of the marriage settlement. Master thought that mistress should have had more of the money—”
“Throw the money into the sea!” cried Mrs. Dale indignantly; “all the gold in the world is not worth the peace, and union, and love of a family!”
“Oh!” said the butler, “one can’t be much in life without seeing how very often money matters break that peace, and union, and love. The purse on one side, the heart on the other, depend on’t the purse wins the day.”
