“Yes,” said Gertrude; “and my brother Harry married a sister of Lady Merrifield, a most delightful person as ever I saw. We tell my father that if she were not out in New Zealand we should all begin to be jealous, he is so enthusiastic about Phyllis.” “You have never told us how Dr. May is.” “It is not easy to persuade him that he is not as young as he was,” said Gertrude. “I should say he was,” observed Lance. “In heart--that’s true,” said Gertrude; “but he does get tired, and goes to sleep a good deal, but he likes to go and see his old patients, as much as they like to have him, and Ethel is always looking after him. It is just her life now that Cocksmoor has grown so big and wants her less. Things do settle themselves. If any one had told her twenty years ago that Richard would have a great woollen factory living, and Cocksmoor and Stoneborough meet, and a separate parish be made, with a disgusting paper-mill, two churches, and a clergyman’s wife--(what’s the female of whipper-snapper, Lance?)--who treats her as--” “As an extinct volcano,” murmured Lance. “She would have thought her heart would be broken,” pursued Gertrude. “Whereas now she owns that it is the best thing, and a great relief, for she could not attend to Cocksmoor and my father both. We want her to take a holiday, but she never will. Once she did when Blanche and Hector came to stay, but he was not happy, hardly well, and I don’t think she will ever leave him again.” “Mrs. Rivers is working still in London?” “Oh yes; I don’t know what the charities of all kinds and descriptions would do without her.” “No,” said Clement from his easy-chair. “She is a most valuable person. She has such good judgment.” “It has been her whole life ever since poor George Rivers’ fatal accident,” said Gertrude. “I hardly remember her before she was married, except a sense that I was naughty with her, and then she was terribly sad. But since she gave up Abbotstoke to young Dickie May she has been much brighter, and she can do more than any one at Cocksmoor. She manages Cocksmoor and London affairs in her own way, and has two houses and young Mrs. Dickie on her hands to boot.” “How many societies is she chairwoman of?” said Lance. “I counted twenty-four pigeon-holes in her cabinet one day, and I believe there was a society for each of them; but I must say she is quiet about them.” “It is fine to see the little hen-of-the-walk of Cocksmoor lower her crest to her!” said Gertrude, “when Ethel has not thought it worth while to assert herself, being conscious of being an old fogey.” “And your Bishop?” “Norman? I do believe he is coming home next year. I think he really would if papa begged him, but that he--my father, I mean--said he would never do so; though I believe nothing would be such happiness to him as to have Norman and Meta at home again. You know they came home on George’s death, but then those New Somersetas went and chose him Bishop, and there he is for good.”