'
'I was not thinking of any guidance,' said the Duke.
'Of course not. But with one so young, where there is intimacy
there will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was
almost the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could
not tell her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot with any
advantage to your girl be that somebody.'
'Cora wished it.'
'Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed.'
'Who should it be, then?' asked the father, after a pause.
'Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question?'
After that there was another pause, and then the conference was
ended by a request from the Duke that Mrs Finn would stay at
Matching for yet two days longer. At dinner they all met,--the
father, the three children, and Mrs Finn. How far the young people
among themselves had been able to throw off something of the gloom
of death need not here be asked; but in the presence of their
father they were sad and sombre, almost as he was. On the next
day, early in the morning, the younger lad returned to his
college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to London, where he was
supposed to have his home.
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