Thomas and Miss Godolphin had been dining alone. Bessy was spending the evening at All Souls' Rectory: she and Mr. Hastings were active workers together in parish matters; and Cecil was dining at Ashlydyat. Mrs. Verrall had called in the afternoon and carried her off. Dessert was on the table, but Thomas had turned from it, and was sitting over the fire. Miss Godolphin sat opposite to him, nearer the table, her fingers busy with her knitting, on which fell the rays of the chandelier. They were discussing plans earnestly and gravely. "No, Thomas, it would not do," she was saying. "We must go. One of the partners always has resided here at the bank. Let business men be at their place of business." "But look at the trouble, Janet," remonstrated Thomas Godolphin. "Consider the expense. You may be no sooner out than you may have to come back again." Janet turned her strangely-deep eyes on her brother. "Do not make too sure of that, Thomas." "How do you mean, Janet? In my father's precarious state we cannot, unhappily, count upon his life." "Thomas, I am sure--I seem to see--that he will not be with us long. No: and I am contemplating the time when he shall have left us. It would change many things. Your home would then be Ashlydyat." Thomas Godolphin smiled. As if any power would keep _him_ from inhabiting Ashlydyat when he should be master. "Yes," he answered. "And George would come here." "There it is!" said Janet. "Would George live here? I do not feel sure that he would." "Of course he would, Janet. He would live here with you, as I do now. That is a perfectly understood thing." "Does he so understand it?" "He understands it, and approves it." Janet shook her head. "George likes his liberty; he will not be content to settle down to the ways of a sober household." "Nay, Janet, you must remember one thing. When George shall come to this house, he comes, so to say, as its master. He will not, of course, interfere with your arrangements; he will fall in with them readily; but neither will he, nor must he, be under your control. To attempt anything of the sort again would not do." Janet knitted on in silence. She had essayed to keep Master George in hand when they first came to the bank to live there: and the result was that he had chosen a separate home, where he could be entirely _en garçon_. "Eh me!" sighed Janet. "If young men could but see the folly of their ways--as they see them in after-life!" "Therefore, Janet, I say that it would be exceedingly inadvisable for you to quit the house," continued Thomas Godolphin, leaving her remark unnoticed. "It might be, that before you were well out of it, you must return to it." "I see the inconvenience also; the uncertainty," she answered. "But there is no help for it." "Yes there is. Janet, I wish you would let me settle it." "How would you settle it?" "By bringing Ethel here. On a visit to you."