“That’s the thing!” said old Sir Giles; “don’t you be tied to your mother’s apron-strings, my boy. The ladies always want to rule over us men, don’t they? and some of us must make a stand, you know.” The old gentleman laughed at his joke till he cried, the old lady sitting grimly by. But she, too, smiled upon the little rebel: “You’ll not find him such an easy one to guide when he grows up, Meg,” she said, nodding her head. “He’s got the Piercey temper, for all it’s so amusing now. It ain’t amusing when they grow up,” said Lady Piercey, shaking her head. But she, too, encouraged Osy to defy his mother. He was a pretty sight careering round the dim library like a stray sunbeam, his little laughing face flushed with play and praise. Had the child been clever enough to invent that little fiction, innocent baby as he looked?--or had he really forgotten, as children will, and believed himself the hero of his little song? But this was one of the mysteries that seven years can hide from everybody as well as seventy, and Margaret could not tell. Now that Gervase was gone the boy seemed to fall into his place again, the darling of everybody, the centre of all their thoughts. And who could tell what might happen? Osy was not the next in succession, but he was not far out of the line. Margaret tried to put all such thoughts out of her mind, but it was difficult to do so, with the sight of Osy’s triumph and sway over them--two old people who were so fond of him and could do so much for him--before their eyes.