Chapter 12 - Page 2

that a woman takes her color from the man she's walking
with. The woman who looks an unquestionable lady when she's with
a polished-up fellow, looks a mere tawdry imitation article when
she's hobbing and nobbing with a homely blade. You sha'n't be
treated like that for long, or at least your children sha'n't.
You shall have somebody to walk with you who looks more of a dandy
than I--please God you shall!"

"But, my dear father," she said, much distressed, "I don't mind at
all. I don't wish for more honor than I already have!"

"A perplexing and ticklish possession is a daughter," according to
Menander or some old Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more
so than to Melbury, by reason of her very dearness to him. As for
Grace, she began to feel troubled; she did not perhaps wish there
and then to unambitiously devote her life to Giles Winterborne,
but she was conscious of more and more uneasiness at the
possibility of being the social hope of the family.

"You would like to have more honor, if it pleases me?" asked her
father, in continuation of the subject.

Despite her feeling she assented to this. His reasoning had not
been without its weight upon her.

"Grace," he said, just before they had reached the house, "if it
costs me my life you shall marry well! To-day has shown me that
whatever a young woman's niceness, she stands for nothing alone.
You shall marry well."

He breathed heavily, and his breathing was caught up by the
breeze, which seemed to sigh a soft remonstrance.

She looked calmly at him. "And how about Mr. Winterborne?" she
asked. "I mention it, father, not as a matter of sentiment, but
as a question of keeping faith."

The timber-merchant's eyes fell for a moment. "I don't know--I
don't know," he said. "'Tis a trying strait. Well, well; there's
no hurry. We'll wait and see how he gets on."

That evening he called her into his room, a snug little apartment
behind the large parlor. It had at one time been part of the
bakehouse, with the ordinary oval brick oven in the wall; but Mr.
Melbury, in turning it into an office, had built into the cavity
an iron safe, which he used for holding his private papers. The
door of the safe was now open, and his keys were hanging from it.

"Sit down, Grace, and keep me company," he said. "You may amuse
yourself by looking over these." He threw out a heap of papers
before her.

"What are they?" she asked.

"Securities of various sorts." He unfolded them one by one.
"Papers worth so much money each. Now here's a lot of turnpike
bonds for one thing. Would you think that each of these pieces of
paper is worth two hundred pounds?"

"No, indeed, if you didn't say so."