Mr. Penton drew his chair toward the fire, which was not a usual thing for him to do. When he felt chilly he went to the book-room, where in the evening there was always a log burning. In the drawing-room it was the rule that nobody should approach the fire too closely; Mr. Penton said it was not good for the children, it gave them bad habits, and it scorched their cheeks and injured their eyes. The moral of which probably was that, as there were so many of them, they could not all get near it, and therefore all had to hold back.

But this evening everything was out of rule. The little ones had been sent to bed. The basket of stockings was pushed aside on the table. Mrs. Penton indeed, unable to bear that breach of use and wont, had taken a stocking out of it furtively and pulled it up on her arm. It was a gray stocking, with immense healthy holes the size of half a crown. She could not get at her needle and worsted without disturbing the family parliament, but at least she could measure the holes and decide how best to approach them, and from what side. Walter had placed himself on the other side of the fire, opposite his father, feeling instinctively that his interests must be specially in question; the girls filled up the intervals between their mother and Wat on the one side, their father on the other. The fire had been stirred into a blaze and danced cheerfully upon all the young faces. The lamp with its smell of paraffin was put aside too, as if it were being punished and put in the corner, for which vindicative step, considering how it smelled and smoked, there was good cause.

“You will understand,” said Mr. Penton, “that the visit we have just received must have had some special motive.”

“I don’t see why you should be so sure of that, Edward,” said Mrs. Penton, “unless she said something. It might be just civility. Why not?”

“It was not just civility; I knew that from the first.”

“My dear, perhaps you know your own family best: but if it had been one of mine I should have thought it quite natural: to see the children, and hear how we are getting on.”

To this Mr. Penton made no reply; the idea of some one coming to see how he and his family were “getting on” did not gratify him as perhaps it ought to have done.

“I think,” said Ally, softly, “that Aunt Alicia came out of kindness, papa.”

“To herself, I suppose,” he said, quickly; then added, “From her point of view it might appear kindness to us too.”

There was again a pause, and they all waited with growing curiosity to know what it was.

Mr. Penton sat in silence, balancing himself in his chair, knitting his brows as he gazed into the fire. Mrs. Penton pulled the stocking further up upon her arm and made a searching study of the holes.

“You all know,” he said at length, “that Penton has been a long time in our family, and that I am the heir of entail.”

At this Walter moved a little, almost impatiently, in his chair, with a quick start, which he restrained at once, as if he would have interfered. And he did feel disposed to interfere—to say that it was he who was the heir of entail. His father’s priority of course was understood, but it seemed hardly worth while to insist upon it. Nevertheless after the first impulse Walter restrained himself.

“I,” said his father, rather sharply, with a certain comprehension and resentment of the impulse, of which, however, he was not minded to take any notice, “am the heir of entail. It is tied down upon me, and can’t, in the nature of things, go to any one else.”

“Unless the law were to be changed,” interrupted Anne, remembering too well the discussion of the morning.

He waved his hand with an expression of impatience. “We need not take any such hazard into consideration; it is most improbable, and quite out of the question. As things are, I am the heir of entail. That has been, I don’t doubt, a thorn in Sir Walter’s flesh. He can’t alienate an acre, nor, at his time of life, in honor, cut down a tree.”

“I have always said it was hard upon him,” Mrs. Penton observed, in an undertone.

They all gave her a look—the look of partisans, to whom any objection is an offense—all except Anne, who kept up an attitude of impartiality throughout the whole.

“I don’t know why he has put off so long if he had the mind to make such an offer. If it had been further off perhaps I might have been more tempted; but as it is—Alicia wants me to join with her father and break the entail.”

The female part of the committee did not immediately see the weight of this statement. It took some time to make them understand: but Walter saw it in a moment, and sprung to his feet in quick resentment. “Father, of course you will not listen to it for a moment!” he cried.

“To break the entail?” said the mother; “but I thought nothing could do that, Edward.”

“Except,” said Anne, “a change in the law.”

“There is no question of any change in the law,” said Mr. Penton, angrily. “How should there be a change in the law? None but demagogues or socialists would ever think of it. The law is too strong in England. As for empirics and revolutionaries—” He snapped his fingers with hot contempt. The suggestion made him angry, although he had himself dwelt upon it in the morning. Then he came back to the real matter: “Yes, there is one way in which it can be done; that is what they want me to do. If I joined with Sir Walter in taking certain steps the entail could be broken: and Penton would go to Alicia, which it appears is his desire.”

“Father!” Walter cried. It was such an unspeakable blow to him, striking at the very root of his personal importance, his dreams, his prospects, everything that was his, that the young man was, what did not always happen, the first to seize upon this terrible idea. He could not keep his seat, but stood up tremulous, leaning upon the mantel-piece, looking down with an angry alarm at all their faces, lighted up by the fire. It seemed to Walter that in this slowness to understand there was something of the indifference which those who are not themselves affected so often show in the threatening of a calamity. Their unawakened surprised looks, not grappling with the question, had a half-maddening effect upon him. They did not care! it did not affect them.

“But, Edward, why should you do that—to please Sir Walter—to please—your cousin? Well, I should always like to keep on good terms with my relations, and do what I could for them; but to give up what we have been looking forward to so long—and the only thing we have to look forward to! I am sure,” said Mrs. Penton, tears getting into her voice, “I should be the last person to say anything against relations, or make dispeace, but when you think that it is the only provision we have for the children—the only—and when you remember that there’s Walter—” She stopped, unable to go on any further, bewildered, not knowing what to think.

“Father does not mean that. It is not that, whatever it may mean.”

“Of course I do not mean that. You take up all sorts of absurd ideas and then you think I have said it. Sir Walter and Alicia are my relations, it is true, but they don’t set up a claim on that score, neither am I such a fool. Try and understand me reasonably, Annie. Property is different from everything else; you don’t give up your rights to please anybody. Here’s how it is. When the heir is willing to step in and break the entail, of course he has compensation for it. Sir Walter is a very old man, the property in all human probability will soon be in my hands, therefore my compensation would be at a heavy rate. They are rich enough,” said Mr. Penton, in a sort of smile, “they could afford that.”

“They would give father the money,” said Anne, in a way she had before found effectual in clearing her mother’s ideas; “and he would let them have the land.”

“Edward, is that what it means?”

“Yes, strictly speaking: if you put feelings and pride and everything to one side, and the thought of one’s family, and of all we’ve looked forward to for years.”

“You can’t put them to one side,” cried young Walter, sharply, in the keen, harsh, staccato tones of bitterness and fear. “You can’t! No money would make up for them, nothing could be put in their place. Father, you feel that as well as I?”

“I feel that as well as you! To whom are you speaking? What are you in the matter?—a boy that may never—that might never—whereas I’ve thought of it all my life; it has been hanging within reach of my hand, so to speak, for years. I’ve built everything on it. And a bit of a boy asks me if I feel that—like him! Like him! What is he that he should set himself as a model to me?”

“Oh, father!” cried Ally, with her hand upon his arm.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Penton in her quiet voice, quenching this little eddy of passion far more effectually than if she had taken any notice of it, “that makes a great difference. They would give you the money, and you would let them keep the land? There is justice in that, Edward. I do not say it is a thing to be snapped at at once, although we do want the money so much. But still it is quite just, a thing to be calmly considered. I wish you would tell us now exactly what your cousin wants, and what she would give instead of it. It is like selling a property. I am sure I for one should not mind selling this property if we could get a good price for it: and as we have no associations with Penton and have never lived there, nor—”

“Mother!” Could the old house have been moved by hot human breath as by a wind of indignation, it would have shook from parapet to basement: but Mrs. Penton on her deep foundation of sense and reason was not shaken at all. She took no notice of the outcry.

“No, we can have no associations with it,” she said, calmly. “I have dined there three or four times in my life, and the children have never been there at all. It would not matter much to us if it were to be swallowed up in an earthquake, so long as its value remained.”

The girls did not take their mother’s prosaic view. Each on her side, they consoled and smoothed down the gentlemen—the young heir, hot with the destruction of hopes that were entirely visionary, that had never had any reality in them—and the immediate heir, to whom this one thing was the sole touch of romance or of expectation in life.

“Tell us about it, father,” and “Oh, Wat, be quiet; nothing’s done yet!” was what they said.

“Your mother takes it all very easy. She was not born a Penton,” said the father. “Yes, I’ll tell you about it, though she’s settled it already without any trouble, you see. It is not so simple to me. Women can be more brutal than any one when they take it in that way. Alicia was disposed to see it in the same light. She said she had been born there, and never had lived anywhere else, so that her feeling to it must be quite different from mine. Different from mine! to whom it has been an enchantment all my life.”

“What your cousin said was quite natural, Edward. I should have said the same thing myself.”

“You have just done so, my dear,” he said, with a sarcasm which went quite wide of its mark. “Yes, I’ll tell you all about it, children. Alicia and her father, it appears, have been thinking it over. They think—they know, to be sure, for who can have any doubt on the subject?—that I am poor. I am a poor man, with a number of children. A man in my position can not do what he likes, but what he must. I need money to bring you all up, to set you out in the world. Eight of you, you know; that’s enough to crush any man,” he said.

The girls looked at each other with a look which was half indignant yet half guilty. They felt that somehow they were to blame for being there, for crushing their father. Walter had no such sensation, but yet he recognized the truth of the complaint. He was the eldest, a legitimate, even a necessary party to this question; since but for his existence, in his own opinion, his father’s heirship would have been unimportant. But the others were, he allowed to himself, so much ballast on the other side, complicating the question, making a difficulty where there should be none.

“I should have thought,” he said, indignantly, “that Sir Walter would have seen how mean it was to take advantage—what a poor sort of thing it was to trade upon a man’s disabilities—upon his burdens—upon what he can not throw off, nor get rid of.”

Mrs. Penton’s mind had been traveling meanwhile upon its own tranquil yet anxious way.

“Was there any offer made you, Edward? Did she say how much they thought?—wouldn’t that be one of the first things to think of? We might be troubling ourselves all for nothing, if they were intending to take advantage, Walter says. But, then, how should Walter know? They would never take him into their confidence. Was any sum mentioned? for that would show whether they meant to take advantage. I never heard they were that sort of people. Your cousin Alicia has the name of being proud, but as for taking advantage—”

“Can’t you see,” he cried, with irritation, “that you are driving me distracted, going over and over one set of words? Walter’s a fool. Do you suppose the Pentons are cheats? To make such an offer at all was taking an—If we had been as well off as they are they never would have ventured. That’s all about it. I never supposed they would try to outwit me in a bargain.” After this little blaze of energy he sunk into his more usual depression. “If it hadn’t been for you and the children of course I shouldn’t have listened, not for a moment.”

“Why should you do it for us, father? We don’t cost so much. We could go away and be governesses, rather than be such a burden!”

Mrs. Penton put down the hand upon which she had drawn the stocking to give Anne a warning touch, while her father took no notice except with a passing glance.

“A man can do himself no justice when he’s weighted down on every side. It has always been my luck. I wonder, for my part, now that they have had the assurance to propose it at all, why they didn’t propose it years and years ago.”

“What a thing it would have been!” said Mrs. Penton; “many an anxiety it would have saved us, Edward. Why, it would make you a rich man! We have always looked forward so to Penton, and nobody ever supposed Sir Walter would live till eighty-five; but I have never thought of it as such a paradise. For, in the first place, it would want a great deal of money to keep it up.”

“Yes, it would take money to keep it up.”

“Everybody says it is kept up beautifully. You never could reconcile yourself to neglecting anything, and hearing people say how different it was in Sir Walter’s time. Then the house is such a grand house, and it would come to us empty or nearly empty. Oh, I’ve thought it all over so often. Gentlemen don’t go into these matters as a woman does. Of course, your cousin Alicia would take away all the beautiful furniture that suits the house. Her father would leave it to her, for that’s not entailed, you know. We should go into it empty, or with only a few old sticks: what should we do with the things we’ve got in Penton?” She looked round with an affectionate contempt at the well-worn chairs, the table in the middle, the old dingy curtains with no color left in them. “The first thing we should have to do would be to furnish from top to bottom, and where should we find the money to do that?”

Mr. Penton did not say anything. He made a little impatient wave of his hand, but he did not contradict or even attempt to stop her soft, slow, gentle voice as she went on.

“And then the gardeners! they are a kind of army in themselves. To pay them all their wages every week, the men that are in the houses, and the men that are outside, and the people at the lodges, and the carpenters, and the men that roll the lawns; where should we find the money? If we could have the rents and go on living here, of course I don’t say anything against it, we should be rich. But to live at Penton we should just be as poor as we are now—as poor but much grander—obliged to give parties and keep horses—and dress—If I ever had ventured to tell you my opinion, Edward, I should have told you, instead of looking forward to Penton it has been my terror night and day. I always thought,” she continued, after a pause, “that I should try and persuade you to let it, until, at least, we had a little money to the good.”

“To let Penton!” The cry burst from them all in every variation of tone, indignant, angry, astonished. To let—Penton! Penton, which had been the golden dream of fancy, the paradise of hope, the one thing which consoled everybody, from Mr. Penton down to Horry, for all that went amiss in life.

“Well?” said the mother, lifting her mild eyes, looking at them for a moment. “I have always thought so, but I would not say it, for what was the use? You all worship Penton, both you and the children. But I never was taken in by it. I have always seen that, however pleasant it might be, and beautiful and all that—and everybody’s prejudices in its favor—we never could keep it up.”

She turned round, having delivered her soul, and drew her basket toward her, in which were her needles and the worsted for her darning. She had settled exactly how these big holes were to be attacked, how the threads of the stocking went, and that it must be done in an oblique line to keep the shape. Without a little consideration beforehand, neither stockings can be mended nor anything else done. She had said her say, and no doubt, however it was settled, she would do her best, as well for Penton as for the stocking. And the others watched her without knowing they were watching her. She settled to her work with a little sigh of relief, glad to escape into a region where there could be no two opinions, where everything was straightforward. There was something in this which had a great effect upon the young ones, especially upon Walter, who was the most resistant, the most deeply and cruelly disappointed. There came upon him a great, a horrible consciousness that in all likelihood she was right.

Mr. Penton, as was natural, was not so much impressed. “All that,” he said, with a little wave of his hand, “is a truism.” He paused, then repeated it again with a sense that he had got hold of a new and impressive word. “It is a truism,” he said. “Everybody was aware from the beginning that to keep up Penton as it has been kept up would be impossible. My uncle and Alicia have made a toy of Penton. It would be really better, it would look more like the old house it is, if it were not cleaned up like that, shaven and shorn like a cockney villa. If I were a millionaire I should not choose to do it. So I don’t think very much of that argument.” Walter’s spirits rose as he followed eagerly his father’s utterance. But after a moment Mr. Penton continued, “There is no doubt, on the other side, that living would cost a great deal more than—more than perhaps we—have ever contemplated. There would be the furnishing, as your mother says—I had not thought of that.”

He made the children a sort of jury, before whom the pro and the con were to be set forth.

“It is beautifully furnished at present—every one says so, at least; that would be a great charge to begin with. And we might have a good deal to put up with in the confusion that would be made between the poor family and the rich. Your mother is quite right so far as that is concerned; what she doesn’t take into consideration is the family feeling—the traditions, the sense that it is ours, and that nobody can have any right to it except ourselves. Alicia, to be sure, is a Penton too, and, as she says, she has been born there, and never has known any other home. But still, as a matter of fact, she has entered another family. It would be an alienation. It has always gone in the male line. To give it up would be—would be—”

“Father,” said Walter, “you couldn’t think of it. It would be like tearing body and soul asunder. Give up Penton! I think I would rather die.”

“What has dying to do with it?” cried the father, impatiently. And then he sat silent for a moment, staring into the fire and twiddling his thumbs, unconscious of what he was doing. The young ones watched him anxiously, feeling with a certain awe that their fate was being decided, but that this question was too immense for their interference. At length he got up slowly and pushed back his chair. “We’ll sleep upon it,” he said.