“Yes,” said Dorothea, with characteristic directness, “Sir James has been telling me that he is in hope of seeing a great change made soon in your management of the estate⁠—that you are thinking of having the farms valued, and repairs made, and the cottages improved, so that Tipton may look quite another place. Oh, how happy!”⁠—she went on, clasping her hands, with a return to that more childlike impetuous manner, which had been subdued since her marriage. “If I were at home still, I should take to riding again, that I might go about with you and see all that! And you are going to engage Mr. Garth, who praised my cottages, Sir James says.”

“Chettam is a little hasty, my dear,” said Mr. Brooke, coloring slightly; “a little hasty, you know. I never said I should do anything of the kind. I never said I should not do it, you know.”