"My foster-daughter is a much more delicate and nice question than my own daughter; and mother, with her sharp understanding, knows it. From no love for Dinah I say so. She's a sacred trust, and if she was a bad girl, instead of a good one, still she'd be a sacred trust. I'm not standing here for my own sake, or for any selfishness. I've long been schooled to know she was going, as we all hoped, to Johnny. And go she must--for her own sake--and her own self-respect. And if anybody's fretting about her biding here, it's Dinah's self. But the work she must go to is the difficulty, and that work has not yet been found in my opinion. Her future hangs upon it and I must be head and obeyed in that matter." "She's turned down such a lot of things," said Jane. "She has not," replied Mr. Bamsey. "She'd do anything and take anything to-morrow. She was at me to let her go for barmaid to the Blue Lion at Totnes. And I said, 'No, Dinah; you shan't go nowhere as barmaid while I live.' And I say it again, meaning no disrespect to the Blue Lion, which is a very good licensed house." "She's of age, and if she was in earnest, she could have gone, whether you liked it or not," said Jane. Mr. Bamsey grew a little flushed and regarded his daughter without affection. "You would--not Dinah," he answered. "Dinah looks to me as her father, and she won't do nothing I don't hold with, or take any step contrary to my view. That's because she's got a righter idea of what a girl owes her father than you have, Jane." "And what is your view, father?" asked Mrs. Bamsey. "You know, mother. I want for Dinah to go into a nice family, where the people will receive her as one of themselves, and where she'll take her place and do her proper work and go on with her life in a Christian manner, and not feel she's sunk in the world, or an outcast, but just doing her right share of work, and being treated as the child of a man in my position have a right to expect to be treated." "You won't find no such place, father," said Jane. "I hope we shall. She's out to Ponsworthy with Mrs. Bassett to-day; and the Bassetts are God-fearing people in our own station of life." "If she was to go there, she'd only be nursemaid to four young children," declared Faith. "Then, if that's all there is to it, she won't go there," answered Ben. "And what if nothing to suit your opinions can be found, father?" asked his wife. "Then--then she'll be forced to stop here, I'm afraid, my dear." "And what if I said I wouldn't if she did?" flashed out Jane. "There's some questions beneath answering, Jane, and that's one of them," replied Mr. Bamsey. In the pause that followed, Mr. Chaffe, who had been smoking in the chimney corner of the house-place where they sat, addressed the family. Jane, however, did not stop to listen. She began to remove the supper things and came and went.