"And if you ask me, Master Reggie" (I hadn't asked her, but that was neither here nor there), "I should say that the dreadful trouble was far more Miss Annabel's fault than Mr. Wildacre's, though I know some do say as it was all his doing: and I dare say it was partly his doing too, as more than one can play at 'Oranges and Lemons.' But to put a young girl under Miss Annabel's thumb, as you may say (for when all's said and done her ladyship is only a young girl), to my mind it was like throwing Daniel into the den of lions; and unfortunately it didn't turn out so well." "I apparently was not successful in the role of the angel who shut the lions' mouths," I said bitterly. "Not you, Master Reggie! You haven't yet got it in you to stand up against Miss Annabel, and never had: any more than your poor Mamma had it in her to stand up against Sir John. Some folks can stand up and some folks can't, and there's no blame either ways, it happening just as you're made. There was a man at Poppenhall who married three times, and his third wife was the only one of the three as ever stood up to him. And nine weeks to the day from his third marriage he was laid to rest in Poppenhall Churchyard. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and the wreaths were something beautiful." "I suppose he couldn't stand being stood up to after all those years," I suggested. "No more than Sir John could have stood it, or Miss Annabel. Folks isn't used to it, if they've had too much of the other thing: and that's where the judgment comes in of letting them get like that. It stands to reason that the Almighty didn't send folks into this world to be always having their own way at the expense of other folks's: and they shouldn't be given it. What was sauce for you was sauce for Miss Annabel, as I've told your poor Mamma over and over again when you were both children. But nobody but her Papa could stand up to Miss Annabel even then; and it isn't likely that they'll begin now." I knew it was very weak of me to go on trying to justify myself in Ponty's eyes; but I did it nevertheless. "You see, I thought it would be too quiet for her ladyship to be shut up to an old husband like me, and that it would be more cheerful for her with Miss Annabel and Mr. Wildacre here as well." Ponty looked at me with a fresh influx of contempt: "That's just what you would think, Master Reggie: even as a little boy you were always one for taking the wrong end of a stick. You're not at all old--quite a boy you seem to me; and old or not old, nobody could deny that you're still a very handsome gentleman. And no woman ought to feel it dull to live with her own husband, even if he were one of the plain sort, and hadn't your good looks. She's taken him for better for worse, and for rougher for smoother, according to the Marriage Service, and she ought to abide by it." "Always verify your quotations," I murmured, but Ponty took no notice of my interruption.