To Mrs Dale he was coldly civil, always referring to the squire if any direction worthy of special notice as concerning the garden was given to him.
All this will serve to explain the terms on which Mrs Dale was living at the Small House,--a matter needful of explanation sooner or later.
Her husband had been the youngest of three brothers, and in many respects the brightest.

Early in life he had gone up to London, and there had done well as a land surveyor.

He had done so well that Government had employed him, and for some three or four years he had enjoyed a large income, but death had come suddenly on him, while he was only yet ascending the ladder; and, when he died, he had hardly begun to realise the golden prospects which he had seen before him.
This had happened some fifteen years before our story commenced, so that the two girls hardly retained any memory of their father.

For the first five years of her widowhood, Mrs Dale, who had never been a favourite of the squire's, lived with her two little girls in such modest way as her very limited means allowed.

Old Mrs Dale, the squire's mother, then occupied the Small House.