Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

10. CHAPTER X: SHOWING HOW CAPTAIN AYLMER KEPT HIS PROMISE (continued)

'And now it's your own.'

'Yes; now it's my own and all my respect for it is gone. I used to think the Creevy the best river in England for fish; but I wouldn't give a sixpence now for all the perch I ever caught in it.'

'Perhaps your taste for perch is gone also.'

'Yes; and my taste for jam. I never believed in the store-room at Aylmer Park as I did in my aunt's store-room here.'

'I don't doubt but what it is full now.'

'I dare say; but I shall never have the curiosity even to inquire. Ah, dear I wish I knew what to do about the house.'

'You won't sell it, I suppose?'

'Not if I could either live in it, or let it. It would be wrong to let it stand idle.'

'But you need not decide quite at once.'

'That's just what I want to do. I want to decide at once.'

'Then I'm sure I cannot advise you. It seems to me very unlikely that you should come and live here by yourself. It isn't like a country-house exactly.'

'I shan't live there by myself certainly. You heard what Mrs Partridge said just now.'

'What did Mrs Partridge say?'

'She wanted to know whether it belonged to both of us, and whether it was not all one. Shall it be all one, Clara?'