much if she can be persuaded to go."

"Oh she's going," Mrs Grantly said easily, while Mary, with scarlet
cheeks, looked at her plate, knowing well that the subject had never
been so much as touched upon to her mother. "You see, Hilary, she has
had a good deal of Redmarley, and the children and you, during the last
twenty years, and it will do her all the good in the world to get away
from you all for a bit. Don't you agree with me, Mary?"

Mary lifted her downcast eyes and looked straight at her father. "The
doctor says it's mother's only chance of getting really strong," she
said boldly, "to get right away from all of us."

"You, my dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly continued in the honeyed tones her
family had long ago learnt to recognise as the precursor of verbal
castigation for somebody, "would not be the agreeable and well-informed
person you are, did you not go away by yourself for a fairly long time
during every year. I don't think you have missed once since Grantly
was born. How often has Margie been away by herself, even for a couple
of nights?"

"Margie has never expressed the slightest wish to go away," Mr Ffolliot
said reproachfully. "I have often deplored her extreme devotion to her
children."

"Somebody had to be devoted to her children," said Mrs Grantly.

Mr Ffolliot ignored this thrust, saying haughtily, "Since I understand
that this has all been settled without consulting me, I cannot see that
any good purpose can be served in further discussion of the arrangement
now," and he rose preparatory to departure.

"Wait, Hilary," Mrs Grantly rose too. "I don't think you quite
understand that the smallest objection on your part to Margie would at
once render the whole project hopeless. What you've got to do is to
smile broadly upon the scheme----"

Here Mary gasped, the "broad smile" of the Squire upon anything or
anybody being beyond her powers of imagination.

"Otherwise," Mrs Grantly paused to frown at Mary, who softly vanished
from the room, "you may have Margie on your hands as an invalid for
several months, and I don't think you'd like that."

"But who," Mr Ffolliot demanded, "will look after things while she's
away?"

"Why you and Mary, to be sure. My dear Hilary," Mrs Grantly said
sweetly, "a change is good for all of us, and it will be wholesome for
you to take the reins into your own hands for a bit. I confess I've
often wondered how you could so meekly surrender the whole managemen