her hand for a moment, and asked whether a very old friend of the family, who had known poor dear Gervase from his birth, might be permitted to say how pleased and thankful he was that there were hopes----? which made Sir Giles so very happy, poor old gentleman? “And I fear, I fear, my dear old friend has not many days before him,” the lawyer said; “he’s quite clear in his mind, but it was not to be expected that a worn-out constitution could bear all those shocks one after another. We’ll not have him long, Mrs. Piercey, we’ll not have him long!” “Does the doctor say so?” asked Patty. “My dear lady, the doctor says he has the best of nursing; and everything so much the better for a lady in the house.” It was with this _douceur_ that the solicitor took his leave, being a man that liked to please everybody. And there can be no doubt that a softened feeling arose in the whole neighbourhood about Patty, who was said to be such a good daughter to Sir Giles. “Thrown over her own people altogether--no crowd of barbarians about the house, as one used to fear; and quite gives herself up to her father-in-law; plays backgammon with him half the day, which can’t be lively for a young woman; and expects----” These last were the most potent words of all. Patty was, indeed, very good to her father-in-law, and that not altogether for policy, but partly from feeling; for he had been kind to her, and she was grateful. The winter was dreary and long, and there were sometimes weeks together when Sir Giles could not get out, even into the garden, for that forlorn little drive of his in the wheeled chair. Patty gave herself up to his service with a devotion which was above all praise. She bore his fretfulness when weakness and suffering made the old man querulous. She was always at hand, whatever he wanted. She looked after his food and his comfort, often in despite of Dunning and to the great offence of the cook, but both these functionaries had to submit to Patty’s will. Had she not carried everything with a very high hand, it is possible that her footing might not have been so sure; for the women soon penetrated the fiction, which was not indeed of Patty’s creation, and Dunning even ventured upon hints to Sir Giles that all was not as he thought. The old gentleman, however, got weaker day by day; one little indulgence after another dropped from him. March was unusually blustery, and April very wet. These were good reasons why he should not go out; that he was more comfortable in his chair by the fire. Then he got indifferent to the paper, which Dunning always read to him in the morning, and only took an interest in the scraps of news which Patty repeated to him later on. “Why did not Dunning read me that, if it is in the paper? The fellow gets lazier and lazier; he never reads the paper to me now! He thinks I forget!” When Dunning would have remonstrated Patty checked him with a look. “You must never contradict Sir Giles!” she said to him aside.