n decision of any kind has become impossible, and
it is a real relief to have those about us who settle everything
without asking whether we like it or not. Such times are almost always
the result of physical debility, when the enfeebled body so reacts upon
brain and spirit that no matter how vigorous the one or valorous the
other, both seem atrophied.

It is at such times that we have cause to bless the doctor who is a
strong man, and fears not to give orders or talk straight talk; and the
relations who never so much as mention any plan till it has been
decided, taking for granted we will approve the arrangements they have
made.

We are generally acquiescent, for it is so blessed to drift passively
in the wake of these determined ones, till such time as, with returning
physical strength, the will asserts itself once more.

Thus it fell out that Mrs Ffolliot was surprisingly submissive when she
was told by the doctor, a plain-spoken country doctor, who did not
mince his words, that she must seize the chance offered of going to the
South of France with her parents, or he wouldn't answer for the
consequences.

"You are," he said, "looking yellow and dowdy, and you are feeling blue
and hysterical; if you don't go away at once you'll go on doing both
for an interminable time."

Mrs Ffolliot laughed. "Then I suppose for the sake of the rest of the
family I ought to go"--and she went.

If Mr Ffolliot did not take Mrs Grantly's advice and look after things
himself, he certainly was forced to attend to a good many tiresome
details in the management of things outside the Manor House than had
ever fallen to his lot before. Mary saved him all she could, but
Willets and Heaven and Fusby seemed to take a malicious delight in
consulting him about trivial things that he found himself quite unable
to decide one way or other.

At first he tried to put them off with "Ask Miss Mary," but Willets
shook his head, smiled kindly, and said firmly, "Twouldn't be fair,
sir, 'twouldn't really."

Ger and the Kitten had never seemed so tiresome and ubiquitous before,
coming across his path at every turn; and Ger certainly nullified any
uneasiness on the Squire's part regarding his eyes by practising, in
and out of season, upon a discarded bugle. A bugle bought for him by
one of his friends in the Royal 'Orse for the sum of three and
ninepence. Ger had amassed three shillings of this sum, and the
good-natured gunner never mentioned t