For Boo, unseen and forgotten, had been sitting in the next room, playing with her big doll which talked, whilst the scene concerning the jewels had taken place between her mother and her uncle. Boo enjoyed anything which bothered Mammy. Only Boo was of opinion that the jewels ought to be her own, not Jack’s. Meantime poor Jack, crying his heart out on his bed, thought, “Whatever good is it being a duke? Two of ’em have had to die one after the other, and I’ve got to be shut up here. And how mean it was of Boo to crow over me. Boo’s so like mammy. I wish there were no women and no girls.” At that moment the sympathetic under-nurse brought him two peaches and a raspberry ice, which she had begged for from the kitchen, and Jack kissed her and thought better of her sex. “I wish all women were dead ’cept you, Harriet,” he said tenderly. “Oh, your Grace, don’t say that,” said Harriet. “But it was to be sure cruel unkind of your mamma.” “I hate mammy,” said Jack with a deep drawn breath. “She took away my Punch, and she’s sent away Harry.” “Oh, your Grace, don’t let yourself blame your mamma,” said the good nursemaid. “But for sure it is hard to be shut up here on a bright breezy day. But eat your peaches, dear, ’twill all be the same to-morrow.” “But you’re shut up too, Harriet,” said Jack, regarding her thoughtfully. “Law, yes, sir, I never hardly gets an hour out.” “But you’d like to go out?” “Yes, sir; but them as it above me, you see, don’t think of that.” Jack ceased munching his peach and looked at her gravely. “I think that’s very wrong. When I’m a man, Harriet, _everybody_ shall have hours out.” “You dear little soul,” thought Harriet, “you think so now, but when you’re a man I dessay you’ll be like all the others, and think only of yourself.” “No, Harriet,” said Jack, solemnly divining her thoughts, “no, I sha’n’t forget.” The solace of having hurt Jack only momentarily diverted his mother from her torturing thoughts for a brief space of time. Her mind returned in fretting and feverish anxiety to the mission on which William Massarene had gone. Two or three intimate friends were coming to dine with her at eight o’clock. She wrote a few hasty words and put them off on the score of her headache; they were intimate friends, and what is intimacy worth if it does not enable us to sacrifice our intimates to ourselves? The notes sent, she went to sleep and slept fitfully for some hours. She really felt ill, for she was so unused to severe mental disturbance that it affected her physical health. She would have liked to send for her physician, but she was afraid he would perceive that she had something on her mind. She saw in the mirror that she did not look like herself.