They were dull years, and for very boredom she tried to identify herself with the work of the farm. She threw herself violently into these new interests to the amazement of her father. Although he was still more than a little afraid of her, he could not help respecting her capability. During the lifetime of her mother he had been so infused with the spirit of this active woman that he had appeared to be a man of some determination. Her death annihilated him: he had relapsed into nonentity, caring nothing, as it seemed, for his crops or his herds, driving in regularly every week to Ludlow market like an automaton, driving back in the evening, morose and fuddled, with no clear idea of what he had been about. On these occasions he would talk piteously of his motherless girls, and his large, sentimental eyes would fill with tears. He confided to his friends that he himself was not long for this world, though, physically, he was as strong as a horse. Marion’s determination changed all that. Subtly, without his knowledge, she pulled him together and made a man of him again, and, never having known the subjection with which her mother had entered the estate of marriage, she did what she liked with him, sometimes wounding his pride with her rather brutal frankness. Yet, even when he was wounded, he submitted to her; for she flattered him by pretending that he was the real head of the household. At root he was a lazy man, and dared not quarrel with his comforts. He realised, too, that the knowledge of practical farming, that was as deeply rooted in him as an instinct, was more essential to the success of their partnership than Marion’s acute and active mind. He prospered, and in moments of exaltation would tell himself that she was only a girl after all and that he was the man who counted. He made a startling recovery of his self-possession and talked no more of death; but his greatest happiness he still found in the society of his younger daughter Ethel, a child whose nature was nearer to his own. Some day, he decided, Ethel should marry a solid husband of his choosing, some big man with many lowland acres, and when the grandchildren began to come along, he would pass a quiet old age among them. Marion should have The Dyke. Even if she were not the elder she had earned it. It seemed unlikely that she would ever marry, being so hard to please.