Cris thought he might have been misunderstood. Cris deemed that his proclaimed intention would find favour with Mr. Chattaway.
"I suppose you have been binding that fellow, father. I want to go and ask him how he likes it."
"No, sir, I have not been binding him," thundered Mr. Chattaway. "What's more, he is not going to be bound. He has left it, and is at home again."
Cris gave a blank stare of amazement, and Mrs. Chattaway let her hands fall silently upon her lap and heaved a gentle sigh, as though some great good had come to her.
None of us can stand still in life. Everything rolls on its course towards the end of all things. In noting down a family's or a life's history, its periods will be differently marked. Years will glide quietly on, giving forth few events worthy of record; again, it will happen that occurrences, varied and momentous, will be crowded into an incredibly short space of time. Events, sufficient to fill up the allotted life of man, will follow one another in rapid succession in the course of as many months; nay, of as many days.
Thus it was with the Trevlyns, and those connected with them. After the lamentable death of Mr. Ryle, the new agreement touching money-matters between Mr. Chattaway and Mrs. Ryle, and the settling of George Ryle into his own home, it may be said in his father's place, little occurred for some years worthy of note. Time seemed to pass uneventfully. Girls and boys grew into men and women; children into girls and boys. Cris Chattaway lorded it in his own offensive manner as the Squire's son--as the future Squire; his sister Octavia was not more amiable than of yore, and Maude Trevlyn was governess to Mr. and Mrs. Chattaway's younger children. Miss Diana Trevlyn had taken care that Maude should be well educated, and she paid the cost of it out of her own pocket, in spite of Mr. Chattaway's sneers. When Maude was eighteen years of age, the question arose, What shall be done with her? "She shall go out and be a governess," said Mr. Chattaway. "Of what profit her fine education, if it's not to be made use of?" "No," dissented Miss Diana; "a Trevlyn cannot be sent out into the world to earn her own living: our family have not come to that." "I won't keep her in idleness," growled Chattaway. "Very well," said Miss Diana; "make her governess to your girls, Edith and Emily: it will save the cost of schooling." The advice was taken; and Maude for the past three years had been governess at Trevlyn Hold.