‘You are angry with me,’ said Aunt Lydia, ‘and you have reason. But what I want to say is about Dick. If your father had made this move at the right time, it is you who should have gone to Calcutta, Ben. You have the best right. My boy only went, as it were, to fill your place; and he ought to give it up to you now. Of course it was to my brother he owed the appointment. I don’t say Dick should come home; but he has made some money and some friends; and, I think he might do something for himself still, in another way, instead of taking your place.’ ‘It is nonsense to call it my place,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t think it is nonsense; for my part, I think of justice,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘It would have been yours had you been sent off six or seven years ago, as you ought to have been. Yes, I say as you ought to have been, Ben, like all the Rentons. None of us were ever fine gentlemen. The men always worked before they took their ease, and the women always managed and saved in our house; but you should not be turned out now, when you were not brought up to it. Ben, my brother was very cross to me that Thursday night. It was not him, poor fellow, it was illness that was working on him. He was not in his right mind; and the will ought to be broken.’ ‘I can’t have you say this,’ said Ben. ‘I can’t let anybody say it. Aunt Lydia, we had better not discuss the question. We have all made up our minds to my father’s will, such as it is.’ ‘Then you are very foolish boys,’ said Mrs. Westbury; ‘when I, who would stand up for him in reason or out of reason, tell you so! Your father’s good name is of as much consequence to me as it is to you. There never was a Renton like that before; but still if it was to stand in the way of justice----! And about Dick. You ought to write to him at once, to tell him he is to look out for something else for himself, and that you mean to take your own place.’ ‘I shall never go to Calcutta,’ said Ben shortly. ‘Then what will you do?’ said his aunt. ‘You can’t live on two hundred a-year,--at least you were never meant to live on it,--you know that. And you can’t live on your mother. Unless you are going out to India what are you to do?’ ‘I shall find something to do,’ said Ben briefly; and then he softened a little. ‘I know you mean to be kind,’ he said. ‘I am sure you always meant to be kind; but I can’t do any of the things you propose. I can neither question my father’s will, nor live on my mother, nor turn out Dick. Let him make the best of it. I should think he had got the worst over now. And don’t blame yourself. I don’t think you were to blame. There must have been some foundation to work on in my father’s thoughts; and it is done; and I will never try to undo it. We must all make the best of it now. Will you do one thing to please me, Aunt Lydia? Let Mary be with my mother as much as you can spare her. She will feel it when we are all gone.’