"You said it was for the sake of the old home and my father!" said the girl, with a bitter emphasis on the _said_. "So it was! It was to give you the chance of redeeming it, and keeping it in the family. It is to be sold, you know, as soon as you are of age, and can give your consent. I can't buy it. Mine is only a jointure, a life income, and you know that you might as well think of Mary buying Golconda; but you--you--with such beauty as yours--might easily make a connection that would save it." There was only a choked sound. "I know you feel the situation painfully, after having been mistress so long." "Camilla, you _know_ it is not that!" "Ah, my dear, I can see farther than you avow. You can't marry till you are twenty-one, you know; but you might be very soon engaged, and then we should see our way. It only depends on yourself. Plenty of means, and no land to tie him down, ready to purchase and to settle down. It would be the very thing; and I see you are a thoroughly sensible girl, Lena." "Indeed! I am not even sensible enough to know who is to be this purchaser." "Come, Lena, don't be affected. Why! he was the only poor creature you were moderately gracious to." "I! what do you mean?" Lady Tyrrell laughed again. "Oh!" in a tone of relief, "I can explain all that to you. All the Strangeways family were at Rockpier the winter before you came, and I made great friends with Margaret Strangeways, the eldest sister. I wanted very much to hear about her, for she has had a great deal of illness and trouble, and I had not ventured to write to her." "Oh! was that the girl young Debenham gave up because her mother worried him so incessantly, and who went into a Sisterhood?" "It was she who broke it off. She found he had been forced into it by his family, and was really attached elsewhere. I never knew the rights of it till I saw the brother to-night." "Very praiseworthy family confidence!" "Camilla, you know I object to that tone." "So do most young ladies, my dear--at least by word." "And once for all, you need have no fancies about Mr. Lorimer Strangeways. I am civil to him, of course, for Margaret's sake; and Lady Susan was very kind to me; but if there were nothing else against him, he is entirely out of the question, for I know he runs horses and bets on them." "So does everybody, more or less." "And you! you, Camilla, after what the turf has cost us, can wish me to encourage a man connected with it." "My dear Lena, I know you had a great shock, which made the more impression because you were such a child; but you might almost as well forswear riding, as men who have run a few horses, or staked a few thousands. Every young man of fortune has done so in his turn, just by way of experiment--as a social duty as often as not." "Let them," said Eleonora, "as long as I have nothing to do with them."