Chapter 9 - Page 2

farm, and a man of considerable influence with men
of his own class. He would not listen to any complaints on the subject.
"She's a varry sensible lass," he said, striking his fist heavily on
the table; "she's done right, to get out o' t' Whaleys' hands. I've
been under their thumbs mysen; and I know what it is. I'm bound to
do right by Squire Henry's daughter, and I'd like to see them as is
thinking o' doing wrong, or o' giving her any trouble--" and as his
eyes traveled slowly round the company, every man gravely shook his
head in emphatic denial of any such intention. Still, even with Peter
Crag to stand behind her, Elizabeth did not find her self-elected
office an easy one. She was quite sure that many a complaint was
entered, and many a demand made, that would never have been thought
of if Whaley had been the judge of their justice.

She had to look at her position in many lights, and chiefly in that
of at least five years' poverty. At the New-Year she withdrew her
balance from Josiah Broadbent's. It was but little over L600, and this
sum was to be her capital upon which, in cases of extra expenditure,
she must rely. For she had no idea of letting either the house or
grounds fall into decay or disorder. She calculated on many days of
extra hire to look after the condition of the timber in the park, the
carriages and the saddlery, and the roofs and gutterings of the hall
and the outhouses. She had carefully considered all necessary
expenditures, and she had tried in imagination to face every annoyance
in connection with her peculiar position.

But facing annoyances in reality is a different thing, and Elizabeth's
sprang up from causes quite unforeseen, and from people whom she had
never remembered. She had a calm, proud, self-reliant nature, but such
natures are specially wounded by small stings; and Elizabeth brought
home with her from her necessary daily investigations many a sore
heart, and many a throbbing, nervous headache. All the spirit of her
fathers was in her. She met insult and wrong with all their keen sense
of its intolerable nature, and the hand that grasped her riding whip
could have used it to as good purpose as her father would have done,
only, that it was restrained by considerations which would not have
bound him.

In her home she had, however, a shelter of great peace. Her neighbors
and acquaintances dropped her without ceremony. The Whaleys had thought
it necessary in their own defense to say some unkind things, and to
suppose others still more unkind; and it was more convenient for people
to assume the Whaleys' position to be the right one, than to continue
civilities to a woman who had violated the traditionary customs of
her sex, and who was not in