"No," said Matt, whose face was puckered up, while he had been trying to catch the eye of Lucy, who sat at the window busily preparing some work for a bright new sewing-machine which had lately been supplied to her from the warehouse where she was employed. "He has the money," continued Septimus, "but that can't compensate for the loss of his child. Poor Agnes!" "Don't speak of her," exclaimed Mrs Septimus angrily, "she was a very weak, bad woman, and--" "Hush!" said Septimus sternly, "we are all weak; and who made us judges?" Mrs Septimus fidgeted about in her easy-chair, looking nettled and angry as she sat near the window, while with flushed cheek Lucy bent lower and lower over her work, once only catching Matt's eye, when the old man looked so alarmingly mysterious that the flush upon her face deepened, and she rose and left the room. "You see, sir," said Matt, continuing a conversation that had evidently been broken off, "it's been let go by so long now, when steps ought to have been taken at once. No offence meant--you won't be put out if I speak plain?" Septimus shook his head, and went on copying. "You see," said Matt, "you ought to have gone to Doctors' Commons, and entered a something against your uncle, and done a something else, and had a lawyer to engage counsel, and then this precious uncle of yours couldn't have touched the property till the matter had been tried in the Court of Probate; when, of course, you must have come out with flying colours. But here, you see, you do nothing; first letting one month slip away, and then another, and all the while he goes to work, gets uninterrupted possession, sticks tighter and tighter to it, and for aught you know, he's spent it all by this time. You ought, you know, to have carried on the war at once." "And about the sinews?" said Septimus drearily, without raising his head. "Blame them sinews!" cried the old man; "they're about the tightest, and hardest, and toughest things in the whole world. It seems to me, you know, sir, thinking it over--and I've had it in bed with me scores of nights--it seems to me that your uncle rather reckoned on his meeting no opposition; and on your--snuff, snuff, snuff," muttered the old man in a confused way, as he fumbled about in his pockets. "Say it out, Matt," said Septimus with a sad smile, "my weakness--no doubt of it, for he could never have believed his own words." "Well, that was the word, certainly, sir," said Matt; "and after all your fuss, I don't know that a man's any the better for being strong, mind you. I wasn't going to say weakness, for I was hanging fire for a word that meant the same with the corners rubbed off a bit; but there wasn't letter enough in the case to make it up."