‘To tache her her manners is it? She’s got the purtiest manners I ever yet see,’ says Mrs. Moriarty, with a smothered indignation. ‘Tache her, indeed!’ It is plain that Mrs. Moriarty is already consumed with the pangs of jealousy. ‘She is coming, at all events,’ says Wyndham shortly. ‘And I request you will treat her with every respect, as one of my oldest friends.’ ‘She’s ould, thin?’—anxiously. ‘She is not young.’ Mrs. Moriarty shakes her head with the air of one who would say: ‘We all know what that means.’ ‘Is she kind-hearted, sir? Miss Ella is terrible timid-like.’ ‘Certainly she is kind. But, of course, she will expect “Miss Ella,” as you call her, to follow her lead in most ways. I’—with meaning—‘shall take care she is not interfered with in any way. I hope you quite understand all this.’ ‘I understhand, yer honour. She’s ould an’ cross, an’ Miss Ella is to follow her about everywhere. But’—with a last lingering remnant of hope—‘she won’t be comin’ for a while, sir, will she?’ ‘She is coming on Thursday.’ ‘Oh, murther!’ says Mrs. Moriarty _sotto voce_, as he shuts the gate behind him. CHAPTER XXIX. ‘Ther is ful many a man that crieth, “Werre, werre,” that wat ful litel what werre amounteth. Werre at his begynnyng hath so greet an entre and so large, that everywight may entre when him liketh and lightly find werre; but certes what ende schal falle thereof, it is not lightly to knowe!’ ‘Nothing will do for these beastly hens, it seems, but the garden,’ says Betty indignantly. ‘Susan, stand there, you—no, there!’—gasping. ‘Oh, they’ve scratched up all the mignonette,’ cries Susan, rushing to the point indicated—an escallonia bush in which three culprit hens are lurking. ‘Were there ever such wretches? And plenty of food in the yard, too! It isn’t as if they were starved. Cush! cush! Bother them! They won’t come out. Have you got a stick, Betty?’ ‘Here’s one. I declare I’m out of breath from hunting them. And the cock is the worst of all. I hope I’ll live to see the broth he is made into; not that I’d touch it—it would be too full of all malice and bitterness. Hi! hi!’ with a frantic dab at the hens with her stick beneath the too friendly escallonia—‘there is one of them, Susan; run—run to the gate! She’s going that way. Ah! you’ve got that, any way.’