driving tandem—only fancy driving tandem to
see patients! Ha, ha! But these are harmless
follies. Oh, he'll ferment clear as your
dry sherry. How's Mary?"

"Pretty well, thank you. Gone out with the
children. Excuse me, doctor, as a great
admirer of old jewellery, asking you to let me see
that key-ring of yours again off your finger. I
always admire it so much—it is really worthy
of Cellini."

The doctor was propitiated; his old grey
eyes brightened under his white eyebrows.
"Only take it off for very old friends. That is
the key of my case-book, which my poor dear
wife gave me on our wedding-day forty years
ago next spring."

It was a curious ring, of old Italian
workmanship. It had originally been the key of the
jewel-chest of some nobleman of the house of
Medici, for it bore the arms, the three pills, of
that dangerous family.

"I should leave you that key when I go under
the grass, Buller, but I've promised it to that
dear boy, for he'll have all my business, and
there's nothing like secresy with a case-book.
Buller, you must walk more—you're getting
too stout. How's that eye of yours, by-the-by?"
He put the ring on again as he spoke,
and rubbed it affectionately with his coat cuff.

"The conjunctiva is still inflamed, and the
iris wants expanding."

The doctor darted a crafty look from under
his thick eyebrows, then began to hum Paddy
Carey—"tum tiddle ti-ti.—But what do you
know about irises?"

"Will you come into the conservatory,
doctor, and see my Neptunias—you are in no
hurry?"

"How do you know? I'm just off to see my
sister. Jack is attending her; but she writes me
to come and see her too, without his knowing it,
for fear he might be offended. Am I ever idle?"

"She'll leave all her money to Jack, I
suppose?" said the rector.

"Every penny; but he won't get it for a
dozen years, I hope. Do you know, Buller, I
am planning something to keep the boy quiet
and prudent; for he is rather inclined to be
wild. I tell him he shan't marry Letty till he
has made two hundred a year by half fees.
He'll do it, I'll be bound, in the first year. I
pretend to be inexorable. I examine his
accounts. I pay no debts. I keep him hard at
it—and what is the result? A better boy doesn't
breathe in all Surrey. He won't drink spirits—
he won't touch cards; yet all the time I'm
negotiating for a small estate to give him when he
marries; but it kills me parting with hard-
earned money."

By this time the doctor and the rector had
reached the conservatory, a cheerful room, gay
with flowers, with vines trellised over the
sloping glass roof, and Chinese caricatures
over the fireplace.

"More waste money," grumbled the testy
man with the soft heart under the bear's skin;
"you'll be having a pinery next."

"Well, and you doctors are paid to cure us,
and half the money you get is for putting us
to a lingering and expensive death—tut! Ah,
it's six of one to half a dozen of the other. I
brought you here, doctor, to say something
disagreeable, but true—will you bear it?"

"Will I bear it? What did I say when Sir
Astley told me once I must have my leg off,
after that accident, riding?—'You'll find a saw,'
I said, pointing, 'in that third left-hand drawer.'
You're a good old friend; come, say away."

The old doctor's manner was, nevertheless,
somewhat restless, and a little belied the energy
and resolution implied in his words. He twisted
his key-ring round anxiously.

The rector's eyes were clear, cold, and fixed;
his mouth closed, as if he felt some inward
pain. He was silent for a moment, then he
spoke:

"My dear old friend," he said, "it seems
cruel to tell you the truth when you are so
happy in your ignorance; but I must use
the lancet and wound to heal—you know
what profession uses that motto. I feel, from
what Roberts tells me, and other people who
know Crossford well, that the adopted son you
love so much and trust so entirely, deceives
you. He is not going on respectably; he
drinks, he gambles, he likes low company, he
is going bad; take my word for it; he is better
away from Crossford for a time; he is going
bad, I am sure he is. He is idle, he is quarrelsome,
he runs into debt, he is going fast down
hill; he has been too much indulged——"

As a skilful surgeon stays his knife to see
if the patient is bearing up or sinking, so the
rector stopped to watch his old friend, who had
sunk on a chair; at first pale, tremulous, and
faint, then angry, restless.

"No, no," he said; "I cannot and will not
believe it. It is lies—lies! What, my boy,
Jack? No, he is full of spirit; he is fond of
humour; they call that being quarrelsome and
liking low society. Gamble? He won't play
even a rubber with me. Idle? Why, he is a
slave at business. He is by this time fourteen
miles from here—out Ashstead way. Pshaw!
I ought to know him."

The rector shook his head. "It is an
ungrateful task to convey bitter truths. How
can we expect a man to sip medicine as if it
were wine? Doctor, what I tell you is too
true; every one but you knows it. That
adopted son of yours is at the King's Arms this
very moment, I am sure, for Roberts told me
he saw him there, at billiards, when he took
some books of mine, an hour ago, to Collingwood's
to be bound. He is there every day.
He goes to no patient, unless there is a pretty
face in the house, or good ale to discuss and
smoke over."

The doctor's back was turned as Mr. Buller
said this; all at once he turned, with nervous
petulance:

"It's lies, lies, lies!" he said, flame springing
from his eyes. "You kill me by repeating
them. You want to bring on a fit, and get