"I say to you, Mawdline!"--Squire Cleverdon paced the room with his hands knotted behind his back, writhing with the inward agitation of his nerves--"I tell you Mawdline, that you did not come here to scare me about small-pox without some design lurking behind. Let me hear it. You have emptied the pepper-box, now for the salt-box." "I do not know anything of a design behind," answered Magdalen, rallying her scattered senses, and then plunging into the main communication with less caution than if she had been fully awake; "but I think, brother, you should get them both married as quickly as you may." "Both!--what Anthony and Bess?" "To be sure. Anthony might take Julian at any time; and for Bessie----" Cleverdon laughed. "I never heard that Bessie had a gallant as yet, and she never had good looks to lure one. If Tony takes a wife that is sufficient." "No, brother, it is hardly sufficient. He might, if he married, chance to have no children. Besides, it is well to have alliances on all sides. If only I had married----" "Fernando Crymes," muttered her brother. "You tried hard for him before he took his first wife." Magdalen tossed and shook her head. "You indeed misunderstand me. You try to provoke me, brother; but I will not be provoked. I am too desirous to advance the family to be browbeat by you and forced to hold silence. Elizabeth is getting forward in years, and she might be the means of alliance to a good family that would help to give ours firmer hold in the position it has won. There is Anthony Crymes, for instance." "What!--Fox for Bessie? This is sheer folly." "Yes, Fox. What against him?" "Nay, naught other against him, save that he does not lay his fancy to Bessie." "I am not certain of that. Why else has he rid this day to the moor? He has not gone for love of his sister, that all the world knows. Now see this, brother Tony. If you was to marry Anthony to Julian, and Bessie to Fox, then you would be close allied to one of the best families of the country-side, and he who would lift a word against you would rouse all the Crymes that remain. They were not unwilling to draw to us, or else why did Squire Crymes bid you to be his son's godfather? Fox will not be rich, but he will have something from his father, and that will be enough with what you let Bessie have to make them do well. Then, if there come a family of children on either side, it is well, for there will be a large kindred in the district, and if there be none on one side, but only on the other then what property there is, this way or that, does not fall out of the family." "If Bessie is to be married, we might look elsewhere for one richer." "Where will you look? Who among the neighbours is old enough or young enough? Some are over her age. You would not give her to Master Solomon Gibbs. Some be too young and hot-blooded to care for her, not very well favoured, and without much wealth." Old Anthony stood still before the window and looked out.