abstraction, to leave her at full liberty to think. At length Lady Piercey suddenly threw down her needle, and with a gesture more like a man than an old lady, smote her knee with her hand. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “I’ve found just the right thing to do!” Parsons stopped and listened at the other end of the room, and Margaret paused in her work too, and raised her eyes. Lady Piercey’s countenance was in a flush of pleasure; she went on drumming on her knee in excitement, swaying a little back and forward in her chair. “It is the very thing,” she said. “He’ll get his freedom, and yet he’ll be well looked after. You remember Dr. Gregson, him that was at that poor little dingy chapel when we were in town? Oh! you never remember anything, Meg! Parsons, you recollect Dr. Gregson, the clergyman with the family--that was so poor?” “Yes, my lady,” said Parsons, coming a few steps nearer; her presence made legitimate, even during the discussion of these family matters, by this demand. “Oh, you needn’t stop work; I am talking to my niece. When I want you I’ll call you,” said Lady Piercey, ruthless, waving her away. “Meg,” she said, after watching the woman’s reluctant withdrawal, “servants are a pretty set, poking their heads into everything; but you always stand up for them. Perhaps you think I’d better have up the cook, and let the whole of ’em know?” “No; if you ask my opinion, Aunt, I think they are better left out.” “Oh, you think they are better left out? Perhaps you think I’d better keep it all in my own mind, and not speak of my affairs at all? But it doesn’t matter much, and that’s a satisfaction, what you think,” said Lady Piercey, grimly. Then she resumed the argument. “I see my way; I see how we can do it all! Mr. Gregson is as poor as a church mouse, and he’ll do anything to get a little money. He shall meet Gervase at the station, and he shall look after him and show him life, as the poor boy says.” She laughed a low, reverberating laugh, that seemed to roll round the room; and then she added, giving Mrs. Osborne a push with her elbow, “You don’t seem to see the fun of it, Meg.” “I don’t think Gervase will; nor, perhaps, the poor clergyman.”