“I do, but how you guessed it, cousin, I can’t imagine!” he replied.

“Oh!” declared Miss Penistone gaily, “a pretty thing it would be if I didn’t know, after all these years, just what you like! Well I will run away, then—but you should not trouble to open the door for me! That is to treat me like a stranger! I am for ever telling you so, am I not? But you are always so obliging!”

He bowed, and shut the door behind her. The Duchess said: “An undeserved compliment, Sylvester. My dear, how came you to speak as you did? It was not kind.”

“Her folly is intolerable!” he said impatiently. “Why do you keep such a hubble-bubble woman about you? She must vex you past bearing!”

“She is not very wise, certainly,” admitted the Duchess. “But I couldn’t send her away, you know!”

“Shall I do so for you?”

She was startled, but, supposing that he was speaking out of an unthinking exasperation, only said: “Nonsensical boy! You know you could no more do so than I could!”

He raised his brows. “Of course I could do it, Mama! What should stop me?”

“You cannot be serious!” she exclaimed, half inclined still to laugh at him.

“But I’m perfectly serious, my dear! Be frank with me! Don’t you wish her at Jericho?”

She said, with a rueful twinkle: “Well, yes—sometimes I do! Don’t repeat that, will you? I have at least the grace to be ashamed of myself!” She perceived that his expression was one of surprise, and said in a serious tone: “Of course it vexes you, and me too, when she says silly things, and hasn’t the tact to go away when you come to visit me, but I promise you I think myself fortunate to have her. It can’t be very amusing to be tied to an invalid, you know, but she is never hipped or out of temper, and whatever I ask her to do for me she does willingly, and so cheerfully that she puts me in danger of believing that she enjoys being at my beck and call.”