“There ain’t one thing, sir, not one. For my part, I can tell in a minute a story as will hang together, a real crusher, one as will drive folks distracted and ruin a family. You’ll never get that out of a woman’s tongue. Nay, nay, they hasn’t the force for it; they’re poor creatures at the best; they can make a person uncomfortable, but they can’t do no more. And when I say the Abbey’s as bad or maybe worse, I mean that the gentlemen has little to do, and they has to amuse themselves the same as the women. That’s what I mean to say.” The Signor gave a half attention to Pick’s long speech while he sat at his piano. All the time he was running over his new composition with one hand, correcting a note here and there, changing a harmony. “’Twas in the time of roses--the time of roses,” he hummed softly under his breath. But the smile on his lip was for Pick, and he gave him a negligent half attention, amused by his chatter, and by the peculiar views he held forth. He looked up at him as Pick stopped, singing with a little flourish in the accompaniment, which meant satisfaction in having at last got the phrase to his mind--“’Twas in the time of roses--the time of roses----” Old Pick was not surprised by the utterance of a sentiment so foreign to his subject. He knew his master’s ways, and he took a certain interest in his master’s productions, such as old servants often benevolently accord to the doings of their “family.” He could not tell what folks saw in them--still, as the Signor’s productions, he looked upon them with kindly toleration all the same. “You may say, sir,” he cried, “‘the time o’ roses’--that’s just the very thing; for, I daresay, but for that rose in his button-hole, and the jaunty looks of him, a young girl wouldn’t have seen nothing in him. But I don’t know neither--women is the queerest things on the face of this whole earth. Flatter them, or make them think they’re bettering themselves, and there’s nothing they won’t do.” “Who is it that wears flowers in his button-hole?” said the Signor. He wore them himself, and he was curious and slightly excited, wondering if any gossip could by any chance have got up about himself. The idea of such a thing kindled him into interest; his right hand dropped off from the piano, though with the other hand he kept softly sounding notes in the bass, and he turned towards his old servant with a look of animation altogether new. What interest is there like that with which one anticipates hearing something about oneself? But at this moment Purcell’s steps were heard coming quickly along the passage, and he came in with his head erect, and his eyes gleaming, and pushed old Pick out of his way. “That will do, Pick,” he said, with a glimmer of impatience, “that will do! I will set things right for the master, myself.” “What is the matter, boy?”