“Dear me! how shocking!” The ejaculation is not one particularly apposite to the special fact recorded; but at least it needs no answer, nor do the sincere tears that follow it, nor the struggle with a _pince-nez_, which refuses to remain riding upon a nose which is being blown. “And Sir George! Poor man, in his state of health too! I suppose he is quite crushed, stunned?” The catechism has recommenced; but to this question, at least, the answer is easy and readily given. “Do you know what he said to me just now, when he came out of Rupert’s room to speak to me?” Mrs. Darcy asks, her wan face lit by a strange shining in the fagged eyes. “He said, ‘No one can say that I have not had two brave sons!’” “_No one can say that I have not had two brave sons!_” repeats Mrs. Prince, with an accent of stupefaction. “He took it that way? Well, I am afraid we all have been rather in the habit of taking poor Rupert for somewhat of a muff!” The other turns away, writhing at having her own thought translated into the brutality of words. Who has held Rupert so cheaply as she? During the enormous hours of the so-called short summer night, how many slighting words and contemptuous thoughts have risen upon her remorseful memory? She has always, always belittled him; always sought to set him lower in the esteem of her for whose love he has served through so many unobtrusive years. Always, always, except--thank God, that there is an except--on that last day in the kitchen garden--is it possible that it was only the day before yesterday?--she had taken his part, had spoken up for him--had done him some tardy justice! To her over-wrought feelings--unbalanced by sleeplessness and shock--the thought of that one half-hour seems to be all that can make it possible to her to endure herself! “I shall not attempt to see him--I mean Sir George,” says Mrs. Prince, sobbing with an unchecked frankness of emotion which smacks more of her original class than of the one to which she has attained. “But be sure you say everything that is kind and proper. And tell him from me that if there is anything of any sort that we can do or send, we shall be only too glad. One of the most valuable privileges of wealth is to be able to help its less fortunate friends in their need!” She goes away still sobbing, but partially comforted by her own bit of bunkum, and the thought of the magic properties of the Dropless Candle. An out-of-place flash of what, under less dreadful circumstances, would have been amusement at the thought of Sir George’s frenzy at being patronized as one of Mrs. Prince’s less fortunate friends, darts incongruously across the rector’s wife, as she turns her steps homeward. Her household has to be arranged for; so as to do without her during the next and perhaps many succeeding days--a deprivation to which they usually so strongly object as quite to prevent it, but in which they now acquiesce with tearful eagerness.