“Do myself fiddlesticks,” cried Sir Giles. “I’m as strong as a horse, ain’t I, Dunning? Be off with you, be off with you; don’t you hear? I’ll throw my stick at you if you don’t scuttle, you son of a----. Hey! you can tell my lady I’m as well as either you or she.” “Yes, Sir Giles,” said Dunning, stolid and calm. But he did not go away. “It wouldn’t be fair,” Sir Giles went on, forgetting what he had said. “I say fair play all the world over. Women don’t understand it. It’s a capital joke, and I didn’t think you had so much fun in you. But it wouldn’t be fair.” “Don’t be a fool, Giles,” said Lady Piercey angrily. “If you don’t see it’s necessary, why, then, you can’t see an inch before your nose; and to argue with you isn’t any good.” “No,” he said, “perhaps it isn’t. I’m an obstinate old fool, and so are you an obstinate old fool, Mary Ann. And between us both we’ve made a mess of it. It wasn’t altogether our fault, perhaps, for it was Nature that began,” said the old gentleman, with something like a whimper breaking into his voice. “Nature, the worst of all, for you cannot do anything with that. Not a thing! We’ve tried our best. Yes; I believe you tried your best, my lady, watching and worrying; and I’ve tried my best, leaving things alone. But none of us can do anything. We can’t, you know, not if we were to go on till Doomsday; and we’re two old folks, and we can’t go on much longer. It’s not altogether your fault, and neither is it mine; but we’ll go to our graves, by-and-by, and we’ll leave behind us--we’ll leave behind us----” Here the old gentleman, probably betrayed by the previous disturbance of his laughter, fell into a kind of nervous crying, half exclamations, half laughing, half tears. “Don’t you be upset, my lady,” said Dunning; “Sir Giles, he do get like this sometimes when he’s flurried and frightened. But, Lord! a little glassful of water, and a few of his drops, and he’s all right again.” Lady Piercey sat bolt upright in her chair. She, too, wanted the ministrations to which she was accustomed: the arm of Parsons to help her up, or Margaret to turn to, to upbraid her for her uncle’s state, or to consult her as to what to do. She had not the same tendency to tears, though a few iron drops came from time to time, wrung out by her great trouble. She sat and stared at her husband, and at Dunning’s services to him, till Sir Giles was quite restored. And then she rose with some stiffness and difficulty, and hobbled away. Parsons met her at the door, and took her mistress to her room; but, though Lady Piercey clung to her, the maid was not at all well received. “What were you doing at Sir Giles’ door? What do you want in this part of the house?” she cried, though she had seized and clung to the ready arm. “I’ll not have you spying about, seeing what you can pick up in the way of news, or listening at a door.”