"It suited him to swear in it, however," murmured Prelice frivolously; then added in louder tones: "What do you wish to speak to me about?" "Not about him that is gone," remarked Mrs. Blexey, referring to her lost spouse, "though his language--begging your lordship's pardin--was as like yours as bean-pods. And because of such talk, he'll never come back--never. Them as has him, will keep him." "Indeed. Are they--whomsoever they may be--fond of him?" "I don't think so, my lord. You see, he's--well, he's dead, my lord." Prelice put up his hand to twirl his moustache and hide a smile. "Then you think that----" "I'm sorry for Blexey," interrupted the housekeeper firmly; "but he didn't belong to the United Inhabitants of the Celestial Regions, so he----" She pointed stealthily downward. "Let us hope it is not so bad as that," said Prelice, choking with suppressed laughter. "You wish to speak to me," he repeated politely. "To catch your lordship's eyes as it were." "That has been accomplished. What next?" Mrs. Blexey groaned, and made an effort. "It's about Miss Mona." The young man's merriment died away, and he looked keenly at the red-faced, shapeless old woman. "What's that?" he demanded in the imperious tone which formerly he had used towards recalcitrant soldiers. Mrs. Blexey, being timid, dropped with a thud on to the sage and thyme, and placed a podgy hand on her ample breast, gasping like a fish out of water. "The heart, my lord--mother's side--it ain't strong. If your lordship would speak less like a gun going off----" "Certainly," interrupted Prelice in his most silky tones. "What have you to tell me about Miss Mona?" "It ain't about her exactly, my lord. But there's the will, you know, and that Madame Eppingrave, as she called herself, though I don't believe it is her name for all her airs and graces, and she nearly as old as me, and as stout too, for all her tight lacing." Prelice, leaning against the mellow brick wall where the nectarines grew, stared at the fat woman, who was still prostrate amidst the herbs. "If you knew of such things, Mrs. Blexey, why didn't you explain in Court?" "Because I don't believe in Courts or in them as is in Courts," said Mrs. Blexey, fanning herself with a pink sun-bonnet. "They got me to give what they called evidence, and say things against my dear, pretty Miss Mona. I nursed her, sir. I was born in the Grange, and have served the Lanwins all my life. When Mrs. Chent went away with her husband, I followed; and when she and him died, I came back here with Miss Mona, as Sir Oliver wished, to be the housekeeper." Prelice nodded sympathetically. "I know that you are devoted to Miss Mona," he said, approving of this devotion. "You are too, my lord, ain't you?" asked the old woman pointedly.