When Dare was not smiling he was always preternaturally solemn.

There was no happy medium in his face, or consequently in his mind, which was generally gay, but, if not, was involved in a tragic gloom.
"These bills, my friend," he would say at last, tapping them in deep dejection, and raising his eyebrows into his hair, "how do we pay them ?" But Waters did not know.

How should he, Waters, know?
Waters only knew that the farmers would want a reduction in these bad times--Mr.Dare might be sure of _that_.

And what with arrears, and one thing and another, he need not expect more than two-thirds of his rents when they did arrive.

Mr.Dare might lay his account for _that_.
The only money which Dare received to carry on with, on his accession to the great honor and dignity of proprietor of Vandon, was brought to him by the old dairywoman of the house, a faithful creature, who produced out of an old stocking the actual coins which she had received for the butter and cheese she had sold, of which she showed Dare an account, chalked up in some dead language on the dairy door.
She was a little doubled-up woman, who had served the family all her life.