“It was a gentleman’s work,” said Miss Crewys.

“Gentleman’s fiddlesticks!  Couldn’t old Crawley have done it?  I should hope he is as good a lawyer as young John any day,” said Lady Belstone, tossing her head.  “But I have often noticed that people will trust any chance stranger with the property they leave behind, rather than those they know best.”

“Isabella,” said Miss Crewys, “blame not the dead, and especially on a moonlight night.  It makes my blood run cold.”

“I am blaming nobody, Georgina; but I will say that if poor Timothy thought proper to leave everything else in the hands of young John, he might have considered that you and I had a better right to the Dower House than poor dear Mary, who, of course, must live with her son.”

“I am far from wishing or intending to leave my home here, Isabella,” said Miss Crewys.  “It is very different in your case.  You forfeited the position of daughter of the house when you married.  But I have always occupied my old place, and my old room.”

This was a sore subject.  On Lady Belstone’s return as a widow, to the home of her fathers, she had been torn with anxiety and indecision regarding her choice of a sleeping apartment.  Sentiment dictated her return to her former bedroom; but she was convinced that the married state required a domicile on the first floor.  Etiquette prevailed, and she descended; but the eighty-year-old legs of Miss Crewys still climbed the nursery staircase, and she revenged herself for her inferior status by insisting, in defiance of old associations, that her maid should occupy the room next to her own, which her sister had abandoned.

“For my part, I can sleep in one room as well as another, provided it be comfortable and appropriate,” said Lady Belstone, with dignity.  “There are very pleasant rooms in the Dower House, and our great-aunts managed to live there in comfort, and yet keep an eye on their nephew here, as I have always been told.  I don’t know why we should object to doing the same.  You have never tried being mistress of your own house, Georgina, but I can assure you it has its advantages; and I found them out as a married woman.”

“A married woman has her husband to look after her,” said Miss Crewys.  “It is very different for a widow.”

“You are for ever throwing my widowhood in my teeth, Georgina,” said Lady Belstone, plaintively.  “It is not my fault that I am a widow.  I did not murder the admiral.”

“I don’t say you did, Isabella,” said Georgina, grimly; “but he only survived his marriage six months.”

“It is nice to be silent sometimes,” said Lady Mary.

“Does that mean that I am to go away?” said John, “or merely that I am not to speak to you?”

She laughed a little.  “Neither.  It means that I am tired of being scolded.”

“I have wondered now and then,” said John, deliberately, “why you put up with it?”