To do Mrs. Walsh justice, she dealt as faithfully with her cousin, the Squire, when her mission lay in that direction; she called him roundly a profane swearer, a man of strife, a vain and puffed-up man of the world, and coolly stood her ground in the teeth of his wrath, bidding him, “Turn me out of your doors, cousin; I don’t mind;—I shall suffer in a good cause, but it will be the worse for you, I promise you.” The Squire did not turn her and her “overbearing conceit and Methodist cant” out of doors, though he threatened it many a time, and it was certain that she browbeat his violence in bearding it, and had more influence over him than most people. The excellent woman rather relished the tug of war, and the coming off victoriously from the autocratic kinsman out of whose way she was careful to keep her husband, and to whom the rest of the parish cringed subserviently. It was not of the smallest use for Lady Bell to be haughty, to be flippant, to try every effort to escape from her persecutor. Mrs. Walsh only found fresh food for her homilies in the girl’s struggles. “I must tell you, Lady Bell, it is very senseless and unbecoming of you to take a huff at good advice;” and Mrs. Walsh proceeded to state her views and issue her censures deliberately and elaborately: “It is not the work of a rational creature to thread beads and flourish on catgut. If Squire Trevor has the gout, it is not your part to leave him alone the whole morning while you make a play of gathering roseleaves. It would set you better to be gaining a knowledge of simples, so that you might distil a remedy for his pain. But I, or any one with open eyes, can see how little you mind him—your own husband, who is one flesh and blood with you, if so be you can please and divert yourself. I should be sorry to see my Sally, who is half a year younger than you, and has no goodman of her own to study and serve, as yet, of such a light and heedless turn of mind.” “You may give your advice, ma’am, when I ask for it,” panted Lady Bell. “I shall not wait for such an opening—folk would have to wait long enough, if they stayed till they were bidden call in question wrong-doing.” Mrs. Walsh rose and took to walking up and down the room, like a peripatetic philosopher delivering his dogmas. “What call have you—what title have you to speak so to me, Mrs. Walsh?” insisted Lady Bell, her cheeks a-blaze. “I have the call of my conscience and the title of one who, by God’s blessing, at least knows right from wrong, however imperfectly I may put it in practice,” announced Mrs. Walsh without a moment’s hesitation, standing still and looking down from her vantage on the culprit. “If I were not an unhappy young creature,” Lady Bell broke down at last, and wrung her hands in futile youthful pain and rage, “if Mr. Trevor, cruel old tyrant as he is, were even like other husbands——”