Personally it did not affect Babie much, but she was growing up to
the part of general sympathiser, and for the first time in their
lives there was a pull in contrary directions by her mother, and
Armine.
Every expenditure was weighed before it was granted. Did it belong
rightly to Belforest estate or to Caroline Brownlow? And the claims
of the church and parish at Woodside were doubtful. Armine, under
the influence of Miss Parsons, took a wide view of the dues of the
parish, thought there was a long arrear to be paid off, and that
whatever could be given was so much out of the wolf's mouth.
His mother, with 'Be just before you are generous' ringing in her
ears, referred all to the Colonel, and he had long had a fixed scale
of the duties of the property as a property, and was only rendered
the more resolute in it by that vehemence of Armine's which enhanced
his dislike and distrust of the family at the vicarage.
"Bent on getting all they could while they could," he said, quite
unjustly as to the vicar, and hardly fairly by the sister, whose
demands were far exceeded by those of her champion.
The claims of the cottages for repair, and of the school for
sufficient enlargement and maintenance to obviate a School Board,
were acknowledged; but for the rest, the Colonel said, "his sister
was perfectly at liberty.
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