“As good a bottle,” said he garrulously, “as ever came out of the bin! ’Twas of the laying of the good Sir Everard—Sir David’s grandfather, you mark, Mrs. Nutmeg. You wasn’t in these parts then. Ah, a judge of wine he was. I tell ye I could pick every drop he had bottled blindfold this minute, at the first taste. He and Master Rickart, Lord, what wild times they had together! Ah, he was a blade in those days, was old Rickart. Now——’Tis well there’s someone left at Bindon that knows the valley of precious liquor, for it’s been disgusting, I assure you, ma’am. There’s master had nothing but the light clary—French stuff—and not known the differ these five years! Well, well, ’twould have broken Sir Everard’s heart, but”—piously, “there’s one left as remembers him and his tastes. May I offer you a thimbleful, Mrs. Nutmeg? ’Tis as good as a cordial!” He was once more the man of importance: the steward dispensing his master’s goods with a fine air of hospitality. “No, Mister Giles, I thank you kindly,” said the lady. Then she measured him again with one of her deep looks, marked the hand which he was stretching out for the port and suddenly whipped the desired object from its reach. Her calculated moment had come.—The butler’s limbs had lost their palsied trembling and there was some kind of speculation in his eye. “No, Mister Giles,” she said, as he gaped at her. “I came here for a little chat, if you please. You’re feeling more yourself again?” The memory of his injuries, forgotten for the brief span of ecstasy, returned in full force. His lip drooped. “Aye, ma’am, a little, a little. But I am sadly weak.” He pushed his glass tentatively forward, but she ignored the hint. “I thought you was a-dying by inches before my eyes,” she announced deliberately. The red face opposite to her grew mottled grey and purple. Mr. Giles began to whimper: “So I was, ma’am. So I be!” Margery sat down and, clasping the bottle with both her determined hands, leaned her head on one side of it. “Another month of small-ale,” she said, “would bring you to your grave, Mister Giles. Aye, you may groan. How many bottles be left of this old port? Seventy ye said. And there be as good besides.” “The East India sherry,” said he, the light of his one remaining interest flickering up again in the aged sockets. “Oh, it’s a beauty, that wine is! As dry, ma’am, and as mellow!” He smacked his tongue. “And there’s the Madeiry, got at the Dook of Sussex’s sale. ‘Royal wine,’ says Sir Everard to me. And Royal wine it is! But you know the taste of it yourself. Then there are the Burgundy bins. Women folk,” said Mr. Giles, “have that inferiority, they can’t appreciate red wine. But there’s Burgundy down in my cellars that I’d rather go to bed on a bottle of as even of the Comet port.” Margery broke in with a short laugh. “Yes, yes,” said she; “I’ll warrant there is good stuff in your cellars. But who’s got the key of them now, if I may make so bold?”