“Mrs. Parsons,” said Patty, over Gervase’s body as it were, “do you think I would soil my fingers by touching you? You thought you would rob the poor lady that’s dead, and that nobody would notice; but you did not know that _I_ was here. Instead of rummaging Lady Piercey’s drawers, you had better empty your own, and get ready for leaving. Have all your accounts ready and your keys ready; you shall leave this house by twelve to-morrow,” Patty cried. “Mr. Gervase, Mr. Gervase!” cried the unfortunate woman. “I say, don’t you go and touch me, Parsons. I don’t mind your talking, but you sha’n’t go and finger me as if I was clothes from the wash,” said Gervase. He laughed at his own joke with enjoyment. “As if I was a basket of clothes from the wash,” he said. “Shut the door upon her, Gervase. I don’t condescend to bandy words.--At twelve to-morrow,” Patty said. Parsons went downstairs mad with fury, and was told the tale of the tea, and how John Simpson had got his dismissal, and was never to appear before that upstart more. “We had better all give warning afore she comes to the rest of us,” said cook. But it was a good place, with many perquisites, and as she spoke she exchanged with the butler a look of some anxiety. Perhaps they did not wish to present their accounts at a moment’s notice. Perhaps they only thought regretfully of their good place. Parsons had carried things with a high hand over the younger servants for years. She had not always even respected the susceptibilities of cook. She had been her mistress’s favourite and companion, doing, they all thought, very much what she liked with the internal economy of the house. No one had ventured to contradict, or even oppose, Lady Piercey’s factotum. It was not in human nature not to be pleased, more or less, that she had found some one to repay to her in a certain degree the little tyrannies of the past. “What would Mr. Dunning say?” was what everybody asked.