“What does that matter?” cried Margaret. “And who is wise? We do what we think is the best, and it turns out the worst. How can we tell? I am glad she is gone, at least, and did not see it,” she cried with a few hot tears. Colonel Piercey looked at her coldly, as he always did. It was on his lips to say, “She was not very good to you, that you should shed tears for her,” but he refrained. He could not refrain, however, from saying--which was perhaps worse--“I am afraid it is a thing which will much affect you.” “Oh, me!” she cried, with a sort of proud disdain, and turned and left him without a word. Whatever happened he was always her hardest and coldest judge, suggesting meanness in her conduct and thoughts even to herself. CHAPTER XXV. No house could be more agitated and disturbed than was Greyshott on the night of Lady Piercey’s funeral. That event, indeed, was enough to throw a heavy cloud over the dwelling, where the imperious old lady had filled so large a place, that the mere emptiness, where her distinct and imposing figure was withdrawn, touched the imagination, even if it did not touch the heart. The impression, however, on such an occasion is generally one of subdued quiet and gloom--an arrest of life; whereas the great house was quivering with fears and suppositions, with the excitement of a struggle which nobody could see the end of, or divine how it should turn. The servants were in a ferment, some of them expecting dismissal; others agreed that under new sway, such as seemed to threaten, Greyshott would not be a place for them. The scene in the housekeeper’s room, where the heads of the female department sat together dismayed, and exchanged presentiments and resolutions, was tragic in its intensity of alarm and wrath. The cook had not given more than a passing thought to the dinner, which an eager kitchen-maid on her promotion had the charge of; and Parsons sat arranging her lists of linen with a proud but melancholy certainty that all would be found right, however hastily her reign might be brought to an end. “I never thought as I should have to give them up to the likes of her,” Parsons said, among her tears. “Oh, my lady, my poor lady! She’s been took away from the evil to come.” “She’d never have let the likes of her step within our doors,” said cook, indignant, “if it had only been poor Sir Giles, as is no better than a baby, that had been took, and my lady left to keep things straight.” “Oh, don’t say that, cook, don’t say that,” cried Parsons, “for then _he’d_ have been Sir Gervase, and _she_ Lady Piercey, and my lady would have--bursted; that’s what she would have done.” “Lord!” cried the cook, “Lady Piercey! But the Colonel or somebody would have stopped that.”