'I don't know really, Radie, why you should talk as you do. I don't want you to do anything--upon my honour I don't--only just to exercise your common sense--and you have lots of sense, Radie. Don't you think people have eyes to see, and ears and tongues in this part of the world? Don't you know very well, in a small place like this, they are all alive with curiosity? and if you choose to make such a tragedy figure, and keep moping and crying, and all that sort of thing, and look so _funeste_ and miserable, you'll be sure to fix attention and set the whole d--d place speculating and gossiping? and really, Radie, you're making mountains of mole-hills. It is because you live so solitary here, and it _is_ such a gloomy out-o'-the-way spot--so awfully dark and damp, nobody _could_ be well here, and you really must change. It is the very temple of blue-devilry, and I assure you if I lived as you do I'd cut my throat before a month--you _mustn't_. And old Tamar, you know, such a figure! The very priestess of despair. She gives me the horrors, I assure you, whenever I look at her; you must not keep her, she's of no earthly use, poor old thing; and, you know, Radie, we're not rich enough--you and I--to support other people. You must really place yourself more cheerfully, and I'll speak to Chelford about Tamar. There's a very nice place--an asylum, or something, for old women--near--(Dollington he was going to say, but the associations were not pleasant)--near some of those little towns close to this, and he's a visitor, or governor, or whatever they call it. It is really not fair to expect you or me to keep people like that.' 'She has not cost you much hitherto, Stanley, and she will give you very little trouble hereafter. I won't part with Tamar.' 'She has not cost me much?' said Lake, whose temper was not of a kind to pass by anything. 'No; of course, she has not. _I_ can't afford a guinea. You're poor enough; but in proportion to my expenses--a woman, of course, can live on less than half what a man can--I'm a great deal poorer than you; and I never said I gave her sixpence--did I? I have not got it to give, and I don't think she's fool enough to expect it; and, to say the truth, I don't care. I only advise you. There are some cheerful little cottages near the green, in Gylingden, and I venture to think, this is one of the very gloomiest and most uncomfortable places you could have selected to live in.' Rachel looked drearily toward the window and sighed--it was almost a groan. 'It was cheerful always till this frightful week changed everything. Oh! why, why, why did you ever come?' She threw back her pale face, biting her lip, and even in that deepening gloom her small pearly teeth glimmered white; and then she burst into sobs and an agony of tears.