Gervase, when she was left alone, could not help being a little overawed by all she saw. Her husband was not much to hold on by, but yet he “belonged there,” and she did not. Patty had felt increasingly, ever since the day on which she married him, how very little her husband was to be depended upon. She had fully recognised that before the marriage, and had decided that she should not mind. But now it seemed a grievance to Patty that he could not defend her and advise her; that she had nobody but herself to look to; that quite possibly he might even abandon her at the most critical moment. “There is never any calculating,” she said to herself bitterly, “what a fool may do;” in which sentiment Patty echoed, without knowing it, all the philosophies of the subject. Who could have thought he would have slid away from her, on her first entrance into a house where she would have to fight her way step by step, for nothing at all--for the first novelty that caught his wandering eye? Patty was tired, and she cried a little at this crisis, feeling that her fate was hard. To acquire a husband with so much trouble, and to find out at once how little help to her he was. He was very fond of her, she knew. Still, now he was used to her, and took her for granted as a part of the order of things, he could not keep his mind fixed even on his wife. He was only a Softy after all, nothing more! Patty roused herself briskly, however, from this line of thought, which was evidently not one to encourage, and rang the bell. It remained a long time unanswered; and then she rang again. This time the footman who had turned his back upon her at the carriage-door, came, looked in, said “Oh!” when he saw her sitting alone, and went away. Patty’s fury was indescribable. Oh that dolt John Simpson, what a fate he was making for himself! While she waited, growing more and more angry, Mrs. Osborne came in again, with hesitation. She was still in her outdoor dress, and looked disturbed and embarrassed. “The servants---- have told me---- that you had rung the bell,” she said, faltering considerably. “Is there---- anything---- I can order for you?” Margaret was very little prepared for her _rôle_, and was as profoundly aware of her own want of power as Patty could be. “Order for me!” said Patty. “I rang for tea, as a proper servant would have known; and I wish you to know, Mrs. Osborne--if you are Mrs. Osborne, as I suppose, for no one has had the decency to introduce you--that it is my place to give the orders, and not yours.” Margaret was so much taken by surprise that she had no weapon with which to defend herself. She said mildly:-- “I do not often give orders; but the housekeeper, who was my aunt’s favourite maid, is much overcome. I will tell them--what you want.”