Mr Gateshead arrived with a big portmanteau and a little tin box. He was rather nervous about this little tin box. He carried it into the drawing-room with him, where he went on his arrival, being a great deal too early for dinner, as old fogies, who are not much wanted in the drawing-room, generally are. But Mary was very glad to see him, as an old friend, and looked at him with a kind of half-conscious appeal in her eyes, of which Mr Gateshead was totally unaware, and which he would have been completely bewildered by could he have seen it. He made some absurd mistakes to be sure. He called her Mrs Clifford, even in Mr Summerhayes’s presence; and then, instead of prudently ignoring his mistake, begged her pardon, and laughed and talked of his bad memory. But the tin box was a heavy burden on the old man’s mind. Every ten minutes or so, he paused in his talk, which was voluminous, to say, “Bless my soul, where is that box?” and to shift it from the table or chair on which he had placed it, to a chair or table nearer. The box oppressed him even in the midst of the gossip in which his soul delighted. He took it up to his room with him, but hesitated, not seeing how he could leave it by itself when he came down to dinner; and at last gratefully accepted Mr Summerhayes’s offer to put it in his own study, where all his own papers were, and which nobody dared go into. It seemed safe under the secure shelter of Mr Summerhayes, whose absolute monarchy was indisputable, and with whose personalities nobody in Fontanel ventured to interfere. There, accordingly, the tin box was deposited, and there, after dinner, somewhat reluctantly on the part of old Gateshead, who was fond of the society of ladies, and of Mrs Summerhayes’s in particular, the two gentlemen adjourned, to talk over that flaw, or possibility of a flaw, in the deeds which were the safeguard of the young Cliffords. They sat late discussing that and other affairs,—so late, that it seemed quite the middle of the night to Mary when her husband awoke her with a cheerful face, to say that Gateshead was of opinion—and he agreed with him, after the close examination they had given it—that the deed was quite unassailable, so that she might have a perfectly easy mind on the subject. “I thought I might run the risk of a cross look for breaking your sleep, Mary, when this was what I had to say. I am very glad myself, for it might have been awkward, as no power was reserved to you under our settlement of will-making, or that sort of thing,” said Mr Summerhayes. “However, it’s all right. I left that old fogy pottering over his tin box in my study. I hope he’ll not set himself on fire before he gets to bed. He’s getting old very fast, Mary. Young Courtenay will soon have everything his own way.” Poor Mary was so pleased, so delighted, so thankful, that it was a long time before she could get to sleep again. She lay half dreaming and dozing, with an exquisite compunction and renewal of love in her heart.