“Back, back, Mrs. Waule!  Back, Solomon!”

“Oh, Brother.  Peter,” Mrs. Waule began—­but Solomon put his hand before her repressingly.  He was a large-cheeked man, nearly seventy, with small furtive eyes, and was not only of much blander temper but thought himself much deeper than his brother Peter; indeed not likely to be deceived in any of his fellow-men, inasmuch as they could not well be more greedy and deceitful than he suspected them of being.  Even the invisible powers, he thought, were likely to be soothed by a bland parenthesis here and there—­coming from a man of property, who might have been as impious as others.

“Brother Peter,” he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone, “It’s nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts and the Manganese.  The Almighty knows what I’ve got on my mind—­”

“Then he knows more than I want to know,” said Peter, laying down his stick with a show of truce which had a threat in it too, for he reversed the stick so as to make the gold handle a club in case of closer fighting, and looked hard at Solomon’s bald head.

“There’s things you might repent of, Brother, for want of speaking to me,” said Solomon, not advancing, however.  “I could sit up with you to-night, and Jane with me, willingly, and you might take your own time to speak, or let me speak.”

“Yes, I shall take my own time—­you needn’t offer me yours,” said Peter.

“But you can’t take your own time to die in, Brother,” began Mrs. Waule, with her usual woolly tone.  “And when you lie speechless you may be tired of having strangers about you, and you may think of me and my children”—­but here her voice broke under the touching thought which she was attributing to her speechless brother; the mention of ourselves being naturally affecting.

“No, I shan’t,” said old Featherstone, contradictiously.  “I shan’t think of any of you.  I’ve made my will, I tell you, I’ve made my will.”  Here he turned his head towards Mrs. Vincy, and swallowed some more of his cordial.

“Some people would be ashamed to fill up a place belonging by rights to others,” said Mrs. Waule, turning her narrow eyes in the same direction.

“Oh, sister,” said Solomon, with ironical softness, “you and me are not fine, and handsome, and clever enough:  we must be humble and let smart people push themselves before us.”

Fred’s spirit could not bear this:  rising and looking at Mr. Featherstone, he said, “Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that you may be alone with your friends?”

“Sit down, I tell you,” said old Featherstone, snappishly.  “Stop where you are.  Good-by, Solomon,” he added, trying to wield his stick again, but failing now that he had reversed the handle.  “Good-by, Mrs. Waule.  Don’t you come again.”

“I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no,” said Solomon.  “I shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will allow.”