Well, well, as long as it all added a moment of cheerfulness, of forgetfulness of the bitter past to his patient, what did anything matter? Doctor McKirdy told himself rather ruefully that Madam had always been fond of fine raiment: for his part, he thought Mrs. Rebell looked very well as she was, especially when wearing that long white cloak of hers, but if it pleased Madam to dress her up like a doll, why, of course, they must all give in with a good grace. Meanwhile, oh! yes, he quite understood that she was not to be shown overmuch to the critical eyes of the village--there was to be no going to church, for instance, till the fine feathers were come which were to transform the gentle modest dove-like creature into a bird of paradise. To-day, for the first time for many years, Madame Sampiero could have dispensed with the presence of James Berwick at the Priory. Of all men he was the most fastidious in the matter of women's looks. A first impression, so Barbara's godmother reminded herself, counts so much with a man, and what James thought now of Barbara Rebell would be sure to be reported at once at Fletchings. Fletchings, never long out of Madame Sampiero's thoughts, yet rarely mentioned to those about her--Fletchings the charming, rather small manor-house originally bought by Lord Bosworth in order that he might be close--and yet not too close, in the eyes of a censorious world--to Chancton Priory. This had been some thirty years ago, long before the memorable later period when both of them became entirely indifferent to what that same world might think. And now James Berwick had come to be the only link between Fletchings and the Priory. It had been Madame Sampiero's will, ruthlessly carried out, that all relationship between herself and Lord Bosworth should cease--that they should no longer meet, even to mourn together their child Julia. She wished to be remembered as she had been, not as she now was, a living corpse, an object of repulsion--so she told herself with grim frankness--to any sanely constituted man. The mistress of Chancton Priory never allowed herself to regret her decision, but still there were times when James Berwick's prolonged absences saddened her and seemed to make the lamp of her life burn very low. From him alone she chose to learn what her old friend was thinking and doing, and how he regarded those struggles in the political arena of which she was still almost as interested a spectator as he was himself. Through Berwick, she was thus able to follow each phase of the pleasant life Lord Bosworth had made for himself, in this, the evening of his days.