There had been little or no conversation between Jane and her father respecting the loss of her fortune since that memorable night when the Squire himself first heard the fatal tidings, and Jane was far more anxious than he was that the topic should never be broached between them again. She guessed in part what his object might be when he began to cut down the house expenses at Pincote discharging some half dozen of his people; raising his farm rents where it was possible to do so; letting out the whole, instead of a portion only, of the park as pasturage for sheep; selling some of his horses, and the whole of his famous cellar of wines; besides arranging for part of the produce of his kitchen garden to be taken by a greengrocer at Duxley. She guessed, but that was all. Her father said nothing definite as to his reasons for so doing, and she made no inquiry. The sphere of his enjoyment had now become a very limited one. If it gave him pleasure—and she could not doubt that it did—to live penuriously so as to be enabled to put away a few extra pounds per annum, she would not mar the edge of that pleasure by seeming even to notice what was going on, much less make any inquiry as to its meaning. The Squire, on his part, had many a good chuckle in the solitude of his own room. “After I’m gone, she’ll know what it all means,” he would say to himself. “She’s puzzled now—they are all puzzled. They call me a miser, do they? Let ’em call me what they like. Another twenty put away to-day. That makes——” and out would come his passbook and his spectacles. The fact that the Squire no longer either received company or went into society compelled Jane, in a great measure, to follow his example. There were two or three houses to which, if she chose, she could still go without its being thought strange that there was no return invitation to Pincote; and there were two or three old school friends whom she could invite to a cup of tea in her own little room without their feeling offended that they were not asked to stay to dinner. But of society, in the general sense of the term, Jane now saw little or nothing. To her this was no source of regret. Just now she was far too deeply in love to care very much for company of any kind.