"Pray don't say so, ma! Don't say so! Say something, Herbert, to her, and don't be so unfeeling!" eagerly ejaculated Laura, turning to her husband, who did not know what to say. He certainly had hoped that he and his wife could have lived together without the services of his honoured mother-in-law, the lady in her own right; but what could he do? Here was she asking, and Laura urging it; and he was a single man against two energetic females. He was helpless, although he wished to do battle on his sister Lizzie's behalf, being certain that she and the campaigner would not get on well together. He was driven to the wall, however, for Laura had called on him to say something, and he must speak! "Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!" he began. "That is, I mean to say, we will be most happy, Laura, and myself, to have you to live with us. Delighted, I'm sure; and Laura can make all the arrangements; but if there's anything you want me to see to, you have only to ask. That's all, and--and--" "You dear, impulsive creature," interrupted the campaigner; "you are so good. I thought you did not mean to be unkind; but my feelings have been so lacerated of late that a very little affects me now." The campaigner spoke of a very little affecting her as if she were alluding to the imbibition of gin, or some other stimulant. "And so _that's_ all arranged, and I can give up the cottage at once. It will be delightful to live here altogether; just like the happy family, won't it?" "Quite so, Lady Inskip, quite so!" responded the Reverend Herbert; but he did not speak cheerfully, and I fear he had other views in his own mind of what a "happy family" arrangement might be. "Charming, ma!" chorused Laura. "We'll see about making the arrangements at once, in order to prevent you from changing your mind." The incumbent's wife need not, however, have been under any anxiety on that score: the campaigner knew very well when she had made a bargain, and she was not going to back out of it. "I must send the darling boy Mortimer to school, however. It will be so sad parting with him, but it must be done. It would never do to have him here, would it?" And she looked inquiringly at her son-in-law. Pringle had sundry experiences of the darling boy's tractable disposition, and was rather disinclined in being so intimately associated with the young hopeful, so he combatted the point. "You're quite right, Lady Inskip. He'd better be sent to school; not that I'd have any objections to his coming here, but then--" "Yes," sighed the campaigner, "I suppose he must go; it would be too much to ask." "Oh! have him here, ma. Don't send him to school, poor little fellow! Herbert won't mind, will you?" struck in Laura. The incumbent was again doomed to defeat. He could refuse his young wife nothing when she was so judiciously "backed up" by the campaigner. "Oh! certainly not, Lady Inskip. Have him here by all means."