I'd drag
her out of bed to do it," retorted Jan. "I can tell you one thing,
Parkes; that she is worse than you think for. I am not sure that she
will be long with you; and you won't get such a wife again in a hurry,
once you lose her. Give her a chance to get well. I'll see that she gets
up fast enough, when she is fit for it."

Parkes touched his peaked cap as Jan turned away. It was very rare that
Jan came out with a lecture; and when he did, the sufferers did not like
it. A sharp word from Jan Verner seemed to tell home.

Jan returned to Sir Henry Tempest, and they walked a way in the
direction of Deerham Court.

"I conclude all is well at Lady Verner's," remarked Sir Henry.

"Well enough," returned Jan. "I thought I heard you were not coming
until to-morrow. They'll be surprised."

"I wrote word I should be with them to-morrow," replied Sir Henry. "But
I got impatient to see my child. Since I left India and have been fairly
on my way to her, the time of separation has seemed longer to me than it
did in all the previous years."

"She's a nice girl," returned Jan. "The nicest girl in Deerham."

"Is she pretty?" asked Sir Henry.

The question a little puzzled Jan. "Well, I think so," answered he.
"Girls are much alike for that, as far as I see. I like Miss Lucy's
look, though; and that's the chief thing in faces."

"How is your brother, Janus?"

Jan burst out laughing. "Don't call me Janus, Sir Henry. I am not known
by that name. They wanted me to have Janus on my door-plate; but nobody
would have thought it meant me, and the practice might have gone off."

"You are Jan, as you used to be, then? I remember Lucy has called you so
in her letters to me."

"I shall never be anything but Jan. What does it matter? One name's as
good as another. You were asking after Lionel. He has got Verner's Pride
again: all in safety now."

"What a very extraordinary course of events seems to have taken place,
with regard to Verner's Pride!" remarked Sir Henry. "Now your brother's,
now not his, then his again, then not his! I cannot make it out."

"It was extraordinary," assented Jan. "But the uncertain tenure is at an
end, and Lionel is installed there for life. There ought never to have
been any question of his right to it."

"He has had the misfortune to lose his wife," observed Sir Henry.

"It was not much of a misfortune," returned Jan, always plain. "She was
too sickly ever to enjoy life; and I know she must have