Do it, and you'll put things on an intelligible
footing at once. Come, sir, thank
your grey hairs, and tottering limbs, and
general disrepair, that I don't resent the
most insulting offer ever made to a gentleman.
Go back to your friends and tell 'em
they have failed. I despise 'em and their
lucre. I don't traffic in my children like
the Chinese and other barbarous nations.
And by all the chief justices in Christendom,
there'll not be a man, woman, or
child in the place that won't know of the
disgraceful offer you've brought me! There,
now! The audience is over."

Mr. Lumley was almost stunned by this
reception, and lost all his readiness of
reply. In the whole course of his life he
had never met such an incident. He was
enraged with himself for having got into
such a ridiculous position, being thus
literally turned out, as the Doctor said,
"with a bit of entomology in his ear."
Then he had to report his interview
at Leadersfort, which he did in a sort of
general shrugging way. " Hopeless. Could
make nothing of the fellow. Got him
into a corner, then he broke away." And
at dinner he described him as " a low-bred,
scheming scoundrel, one of those glib,
humbugging, blarneying fellows, that ought to
be taken up and put in the stocks, if there
were such things. Oh, have nothing to do
with him, my dear madam. He is not fit for
you to deal with."

"But I thought," said Mrs. Leader, in
her dazed way, "I thought you were
to——"

"Oh, I declare I have had enough of
such errands," said the old gentleman. " I
wouldn't soil my fingers with such a creature.
I am sorry I went near him."

At this failure Mrs. Leader became
almost panic-stricken. With this deadly
and dangerous Doctor everybody seemed
destined to fail. It seemed as though a
net were wrapping round them all; and in
almost despair she wrote off to her trusty
brother, begging of him to return at once.

Meanwhile the time passed by. A second
Sunday came round, when, to the delight of
the crowd, the same entertainment at
church was repeated. But now the party
at Leadersfort had broken up; most of the
guests had departed. Lady Seaman and
her daughters; the offended general, with
his insulted Mysikins, were all gone; and
scarcely any one was left at Leadersfort.
It seemed hopeless. The most satisfactory
and damning proofs had been discovered
by Mr. Hickey and others as to the
Doctor's antecedents; but it was felt to be
an idle and foolish business to think of
branding him with these. The man had
no feeling or sensitiveness. Mr. Leader,
indeed, timorously counselled compromise
or submission.

"Really I think my voice might be heard;
the girl is very interesting, and it might
do Cecil all the good in the world to settle
him down. I really think I might have a
vote in the matter." The Doctor's speeches
had, indeed, recurred to him very often.
But Mrs. Leader put him aside contemptuously
with a " Don't talk folly!"

Yet but for this sheer incapacity in
conducting the battle, any really clever woman
of the world must have succeeded in
routing the Findlaters. She would have found
her best ally in an unexpected quarter. A
curious change had been noticed coming
over the hero, Cecil; he was growing more
sulky, morose, and pettish every hour. He
seemed to submit to his fate with a sort of
dogged despair, and had sharply said to
the Doctor, that, " Hang it! it was very
hard that he couldn't be left for the short
spell of liberty that remained to him."
And the Doctor, soothing him, wisely
complied, wishing to keep him from much
contact with Katey in such a temper. It was
whispered, too, that he shut himself up a
good deal; and Colonel Bouchier hinted
to his friend Fin, that he was afraid
"That the lad was — you know—— ' the
colonel lifting his finger and thumb to his
mouth significantly.

"Most natural," the Doctor said. He'd
do it himself under such an unnatural
persecution. But, never mind, Katey would
break him of that. The finest thing that
ever happened to him was getting Katey.

To that young lady, now within a few
days of her marriage, we may turn for a few
moments. Latterly she seemed to be living
in a dream. The watchful Doctor scarcely
allowed her a moment to think; he was
always with her, pouring out his jests, his
anticipations, his gratitude to his sweet
Katey for saving the family. He could
not have " carried it on" six months
longer. His heart was weary—his muscles
broken with the strain. She'd have seen
poor Peter led off to jail, as sure as the
chancellor comes down to sit on the woolsack.
What a noble prospect, too, was
before her! That poor Cecil!—she'd make
a man of him, teach him how to live, and,
maybe, do something for little Polly and
poor old Peter.

"After all, I wouldn't like to die in a