(no subject)

Archibald Craven, master of Misselthwaite Manor, taps his fingers on his desk while Mrs. Medlock reads out the household accounts. He is about to wave his approval of Medlock's numbers and dismiss her from his library, when she names a sum "...to measure Miss Mary for clothes, her old ones all being too small, sir."

Archibald stops tapping. "She has grown so much, Medlock?"

Medlock bobs her head in a little nod. "Yes, Mr. Craven." She prepares to explain some other feature of the household budget, but the master raises a hand to silence her.

"Then she is getting too old," he says, half to himself, "to run around in the gardens all day. Medlock?"

"Yes, Mr. Craven?"

"See about girls' schools in Yorkshire. The best schools, of course, with good teachers and very large grounds."

Medlock bobs her head again, this time in relief. As she's said more than once below stairs, it's hardly right for a girl that age to play with no one but two boys. "Yes, Mr. Craven."

"And ask Mary to come and speak to me."

"Of course, Mr. Craven."