“My dear, my dear, I’ll send for Pownceby to-morrow. You must not upset yourself--you mustn’t, indeed. What should I do, and everybody, if--if anything was to happen?” Sir Giles cried. And he became so excited in his anxiety to calm her, that Patty was compelled to conquer herself and regain her self-command. She looked up with a mournful smile from her pocket-handkerchief. “Dear papa,” she said, “we are two of us that mustn’t do that. If you get upset it will upset me, and that will upset you still more; so we must each hold up for the sake of the other. Suppose we have another game?” “You always know exactly what I want,” said the old gentleman, his sob turning into a laugh, as his laugh so often turned into a sob. There was not, in fact, much difference between the two; and the rest of the evening was passed as usual in admiring exclamations on Patty’s part as to his wonderful play and wonderful luck, so that even Dunning did not suspect that there had been anything more. Patty reminded her father-in-law next morning when she went to him, as she had begun to make a practice of doing, to see if he wanted any letters written, that he had spoken of some Mr. Pownceby who was to be written to. “I don’t know who Mr. Pownceby is, but you said something about him, dear papa!” And the result was that in a day or two Mr. Pownceby came, the family solicitor, whom Patty indeed did not know, but of whose faculties and position in the matter she had a shrewd guess. She had to entertain the little gentleman to luncheon after he had been closeted with Sir Giles all the morning; and Mr. Pownceby was much impressed by Mrs. Piercey’s dignified air, and her crape and her widow’s cap. “I suppose it’s within the range of possibilities that a girl in that position might be fond even of a poor fellow like Gervase Piercey,” he said to himself doubtfully; and he made himself very agreeable to the young widow. He informed her that he had received instructions to charge the estate with an annuity of a thousand pounds a year for her, of which the payments were to begin at once. “A very proper arrangement,” he said, and he was impressed by the composure with which Patty received the information. She was not indeed at all elated by it. A thousand pounds a year was a great thing for Patty Hewitt of the Seven Thorns. She would have thought it a princely revenue when she became Gervase Piercey’s wife; but a few months’ familiarity with the expenditure of Greyshott had made a great change in Patty’s views. To descend into a small house like the Rectory, for instance (she had once thought the Rectory a palace), and to do without a carriage, was far from an agreeable prospect. “How shall I ever do without a carriage?” Patty said to herself, and she thought with scorn of the little basket-work pony-chaise which was all the rector could afford. Was it possible that she should ever come down to that? Mr. Pownceby, when he went away, held