Lord Francis Lentaigne's
estate was crippled.

His successors struggled with a burden of mortgages and a mansion
considerably too large for their requirements. Sir Lucius, when his
turn came, shut up the great gallery, which ran the whole length of the
second storey of the house, and lived with a tolerable amount of elbow
room in five downstairs sitting rooms and fourteen bedrooms. Miss
Lentaigne made occasional raids on the gallery in order to see that the
fine old-fashioned furniture did not rot. Neither she nor her brother
thought of using the room.

For Frank Mannix the white tie which is worn in the evening was still
something of a novelty and therefore a difficulty. He was struggling
with it, convinced of the great importance of having the two sides
of its bow symmetrical, when Priscilla tapped at his bedroom door. In
response to his invitation to enter she opened the door half way and put
her head and shoulders into the room.

"I thought I'd just tell you as I was passing," she said, "that it's all
right about your ankle."

Frank, who had just re-bandaged the injured limb, asked her what she
meant.

"I've seen Aunt Juliet," she said, "and I find that she's quite dropped
Christian Science and is frightfully keen on Woman's Suffrage. That's
always the way with her. When she's done with a thing she simply hoofs
it without a word of apology to anyone. It was the same with the uric
acid. She'd talk of nothing else in the morning and before night it was
withered like the flower of the field upon the housetop, 'whereof the
mower filleth not his arm.' I expect you know the sort I mean."

She shut the door and Frank heard her running down the passage. A couple
of minutes later he heard her running back again. This time she opened
the door without tapping.

"I can't think," she said, "what Woman's Suffrage can possibly have
to do with the big gallery, but they must be mixed up somehow or Mrs.
Geraghty and the housemaids wouldn't be sporting about the way they are.
They're at it still. I've just looked in at them."

During dinner the conversation was very largely political. Sir Lucius
inveighed with great bitterness against the government's policy in
Ireland. Now and then he recollected that Frank's father was a
supporter of the government. Then he made such excuses for the Cabinet's
blundering as he could. Miss Lentaigne also condemned the government,
though less for its incurable habit for truckling to the force