Her father, seeing that she would be the heiress of the Hanbury property, had given her a training which was thought unusual in those days, and she liked to feel herself queen regnant, and to have to decide in all cases between herself and her tenantry.

But, perhaps, Mr.
Horner would have done it more wisely; not but what she always attended to him at last.

She would begin by saying, pretty clearly and promptly, what she would have done, and what she would not have done.

If Mr.
Horner approved of it, he bowed, and set about obeying her directly; if he disapproved of it, he bowed, and lingered so long before he obeyed her, that she forced his opinion out of him with her "Well, Mr.Horner! and what have you to say against it ?" For she always understood his silence as well as if he had spoken.

But the estate was pressed for ready money, and Mr.Horner had grown gloomy and languid since the death of his wife, and even his own personal affairs were not in the order in which they had been a year or two before, for his old clerk had gradually become superannuated, or, at any rate, unable by the superfluity of his own energy and wit to supply the spirit that was wanting in Mr.Horner.
Day after day Mr.Smithson seemed to grow more fidgety, more annoyed at the state of affairs.