How it opens
You were Agnes Charteris of Merkland, and the house had been poor and proud so long it no longer felt the two as separate.
The Charterises had held the land two hundred years and the last fifty of them on credit and ceremony.
JanetThe new land-agent is come, Miss Agnes. And I will say it at the door and not in the room. He is a Ross.
Mr CharterisA Ross on Merkland ground; well; his father kept my books once, and lost me more than books.
Choose
Go to the door yourself, and be Merkland to him, whatever the name is.
Let your father receive him alone, and keep Merkland's women out of the old quarrel.
Send Janet to the lodge with the key and the terms, and watch him arrive from the schoolroom window.