"If your Ladyship would be so kind as to give Rose Ann a tip about her conduct, 't would be a mercy so. For the queer way she does be acting with the postman is no credit to this house at all. New ribbons in her cap, indeed, looking for love, when she ought to be making her peace with God and man." But Rose Ann had the same story. "If your Ladyship pleases, a wee word to Ellen would not be out of the way. 'T is the postman, your Ladyship, has been complaining bitterly. 'Ma'am,' says he to me, 'would you be telling a secret?' 'If so be as I know it,' says I, 'I will.' 'Is that one,' says he, 'right in her head?' 'Is it Ellen you mean?' says I. ''T is that same,' says he. ''T is that has been puzzling myself, but why do you ask?' say I. ''T is the dirty look she has in her eye,' says he, 'and the queer conversation is at her. "'T is the world's wonder you never married," she does be telling me, "and you the fine lad you are."' Your Ladyship should speak to her. You should so." "I will, Rose Ann." But worst of all were the quarrels between the coachman and the groom. The coachman was a fine, florid man, and the groom was a wizened little troll who had once been a jockey. The coachman was always in decent black, the groom in corduroys. They were forever arguing on everything, from politics to horses. Once Lady Margery had come into the yard to see the groom stepping around like a bantam boxer, his hands up, his feet tapping the ground like a dancer's. "Put up your hands!" he was shouting. "Put up your hands!" "Go 'way t' the divil out o' that!" "Come on if you 're fit! Come on if you 're man enough! I 'll give you a beating you 've been spoiling for for the last thirty years." "Go 'way t' the divil out o' that!" "I will not go 'way out o' that. It's fight I want. I 'm boiling mad for one clout at your ugly gob." "Will you whisht!" The coachman had seen Lady Margery. "I will not whisht. Put up your hands! I 'll not stop till I 'm dug out of ye!" "Kelleher, Brady, what's this?" The groom dropped his fighting attitude and pulled off his cap. "'T is just a foolish wee argument we were having, m'lady. I was telling this bloody old cod--begging your pardon, m'lady, for giving him his right name--that Lynchehaun the murderer was by rights a cousin to my mother's people, and he said that it was n't in either side of my family to produce a fine murdering man like the same Lynchehaun. So I up and gives him a tip about himself and his drunken old mother...." "Kelleher!" "Not that I know anything about her, m'lady, but I just thought that if he had any pride, it would cut him to the quick!" IV Nobody in the world but herself, she thought often, could have kept them. But if she sent them away, where would they go? The old gardener--could he last away from the soil he had tended with the care of parents?