himself when it was so entirely in his power? But when Patty sat the whole evening through playing backgammon with Sir Giles, her ears on the alert for every sound, her hopes sometimes raised by a footstep on the stairs to imagine that he had not gone out after all, or her fears excited by some noise to the terror of believing that he had come back earlier than usual, and was coming in--like the fool he was, to betray himself to his father! it was not wonderful if she looked sometimes with a suppressed bitterness at her old father-in-law fumbling at his game. What good was his life to that old man? He could not walk a step without assistance. He was bound to that chair whatever happened. He had nobody of his own age to speak to, no one except people of another generation, whom he was keeping out of what Patty called “their own.” “Oh, if the old man were out of the way, how soon I could put everything right!” Patty said to herself. Though she had indeed failed, and received a grievous defeat, her confidence in herself was not shaken. It was only circumstances, she thought, that were to blame. If she had things in her own hands, if her evenings were unencumbered, if she could devote herself to her husband as she had intended to do, let us see how long the Seven Thorns would have stood against her! And, oh, what good was his life to that old man! If he were to die, what a blessed relief it would be! Full of aches and pains, his nerves shattered, unable to keep from crying when he talked, unable to think of anything except his walk (walk! in his chair driven by Dunning), and his dinner, which was chiefly slops, and his cups of beef tea, and his drops, and his game at night, which he was allowed to win to please him! Poor Sir Giles! It was not, indeed, a very pleasing programme: but it is to be supposed that it did not seem so miserable to him as to Patty, for Sir Giles showed no inclination whatever to die. He might have thought, if he had been an unselfish old man, that he was a burden, that he kept the young people from enjoying their lives, while getting so little good out of his own--that if he were but out of the way Patty would be my lady, and free to look after her own husband and keep him straight; but he did not do so. She sat all the evening through, and said: “Yes, dear papa,” and “How capitally you play!” and “What luck you have!” and “I am nowhere beside you, dear papa,” smiling and beaming upon him, and, to do her justice, exerting all her powers to amuse him; but all the time saying to herself, “Oh, what good is his life to him! Oh, how can he go on like this, keeping Gervase out of his right place, and keeping me that I can’t do anything for my own husband! Oh, that we had the house to ourselves and I were free to keep Gervase straight!”