The ancient estate was entailed, and knew nothing of such slight things as girls. When their father died they would have to give up Mount and go away from it. It was true that there still would be a great deal of land in the county belonging to one of them at least, for Mr. Mountford had not been able to resist the temptation of buying and enlarging his estate at the time when he married his first wife, and thought of no such misfortune as that of leaving only a couple of girls behind him. A long life and boys to succeed him were as certainties in his thoughts when he bought all the lands about Charwood and the estate of Lower Lilford. There they lay now, embracing Mount on every side, Mount which must go to Heathcote Mountford, the head of the _other_ family. It was grievous, but it could not be helped. And the girls were not Mountfords, either the one or the other. They betrayed, shall we say, an inherent resentment against the law of entail and all its harsh consequences, by resembling their mothers, and declining to be like the race which thus callously cast them forth. Mrs. Mountford looked at them with very watchful eyes. She knew what it was which had made her husband send for his eldest daughter into his study after breakfast. It was a circumstance which often galled Anne, a high-spirited girl, that her stepmother should be in the secret of all her personal concerns; but still man and wife are one, and it could not be helped. This fact, however, that everything was known about her, whether she would or not, shut her lips and her heart. Why should she be confidential and open herself to their inspection when they knew it all beforehand without her? This stopped all inclination to confide, and had its effect, no doubt, as all repression has, on Anne’s character. Her heart was in a turmoil now, aching with anger and annoyance, and disappointment, and a sense of wrong. But the only effect of this was to make her more serious than ever. In such a mood to win a smile from her, to strike her sense of humour, which was lively, or to touch her heart, which was tender, was to open the floodgates, and the girl resented and avoided this risk with all the force of her nature. And, truth to tell, there was little power, either in Mrs. Mountford or her daughter, to undo the bonds with which Anne had bound herself. It was seldom that they appealed to her feelings, and when they made her laugh it was not in sympathy, but derision--an unamiable and unsatisfactory kind of laughter. Therefore it happened now that they knew she was in trouble, and watched her keenly to see the traces of it; and she knew they knew, and sternly repressed any symptom by which they might divine how much moved she was. ‘You build your cottages your way,’ cried Rose, ‘and I will build mine in mine. Papa will let me have my choice as well as you, and just see which will be liked best.’