The rector looked mistrustfully at Miss Paget,
but she only looked down at the music.

"Uncle," she said, "shall I play your favourite—
'My Mother bids me bind my Hair'?"

"Do, dear," said the doctor, as he shuffled
the cards for a fresh deal. "Mrs. Price, it is
your lead."

"Doctor," said Mrs. Price, as the rubber
closed, "you know my niece Mary had the
measles while she was stopping with the Campbells
in Argyllshire. She is coming to us next
week."

The doctor darted a shrewd humorous glance
at the speaker from the ambush of his grey
eyebrows.

"On your honour, tell me, now. Confess.
Was it really the measles? You know our
Northern friends are rather subject to epidermical
attacks, and it may be the haut ton in Argyllshire
to give it that name."

Mrs. Price laughed good naturedly as she cut
the cards to the doctor, and assured him it
was really the measles from which her niece had
suffered.

"Doctor," said the rector, "you are very
prejudiced. It was the fashion, when you were
young, to dislike the Scotch; but it is not so now.
They are a fine, sturdy, clannish, persevering,
well-educated, religious people."

"Pshaw! grinders and screwers, nippers and
pinchers, ain't they, Kestephen? Ugh! I don't
like 'em."

"How did I play that, doctor?" said his
partner, one of the Prices, a young Indian
officer.

"When old Judge Barrow was once asked
how he liked a pudding at my father's house,
he replied, 'It's a good pudding, Thatcher, but
not a very good pudding.' You played a good
game, but not a very good game. Sir, you lost
us two tricks by trumping my thirteenth club.
And, sir, may I ask what possible benefit can
you derive from constantly repeating
Hindostanee phrases? If they are oaths, the custom is
ungentleman-like, however you disguise it. If
they mean nothing, the custom is ridiculous.
Sir, what prevents me from exclaiming
'Chavash,' 'Pukrao,' 'Balderdash,' or any such
gibberish, and calling it Chinese or Hebrew?"

The young officer coloured, for he felt the
rebuke. The doctor could be at times terribly
Johnsonian, and his satire fell on luckless
offenders like blows of the knout.

"Quite right," said Mrs. Price. "It is an old
affectation of Charles's. We've told him it was
in bad taste before. Doctor, I think we must
be going. Charles, please to ring for the
carriage."

"I let no one go, Mrs. Price, till we have
some mulled claret, and Letty has played 'Good
Night, and Joy be with you All.' I wonder what
can detain that boy? Farmer Bennet must be
very ill. How I have missed my dear old
sister too. She does play such an excellent
game. Doesn't she, Buller?"

It was past one before the guests retired.
The doctor paced the room anxiously. He
was perturbed. He longed for the return of his
adopted son; he scarcely knew why, but he
also dreaded it. He took up a book; he
could not read. Gradually, as he sat before the
fire, he fell into a restless doze. The sound of a
door opening, and the door-chain rattling,
awoke him. He rose, and took the lamp into
the hall. There was his nephew, fevered, and
evidently with drinking. His face was flushed,
his hat was crushed, his coat torn.

"Why, Jack," said the doctor, reproachfully,
"you've tired yourself in your rounds, and then
taken too much wine. You shouldn't let those
farmers tempt you. I used to find it hard."

"There, that'll do," said Harkness, sullenly.
"I've been with no farmer. I drank because
I'd lost at cards, I tell you, and your cursed
stinginess never leaves me a shilling to try my
luck with. I'll be kept under no longer. I'm
over head and ears in debt, and money I'll have.
If Aunt Fanny won't stump up, you must. I'll
get money somewhere, and I'll pay you out for
keeping me without a penny. No. I won't go
to bed—go to bed yourself. I want brandy.
Give me brandy!"

Then, with a volley of oaths, Harkness threw
himself on a sofa, and fell, in a few seconds,
into a drunken sleep.

The old doctor stood over him, half paralysed
with sorrow and surprise. Could Buller's
rumours then be true?

"No," he thought to himself; "no, I will
not believe it. This is a mere youthful folly.
The poor boy has been led away by some of
those farmers, who think they show no
hospitality unless they make their guest drunk.
Poor boy, how sorry he will be to-morrow morning.
I shall lock him in now, that the servant
may not see him, and I will come myself and let
him out, and then lecture him well. Poor
boy!"

In the morning, when Dr. Thatcher unlocked
the door of the room where Harkness had
slept, he found the window open, and the room
empty. His old servant James informed him
that Mr. John had come and ordered the gig at
six o'clock, and started upon his rounds.

"Poor boy," said the doctor, "he was too
ashamed to meet me. Daren't face me after
the misconduct of last night. Gone out to work
again, too, without his breakfast, dear boy. Won't
dare to see his Aunt Fanny to-day, I'll be bound.
Of course he meant nothing last night;
perhaps I've been too close. I must call at the
bank and draw a cheque for him. Ha! I was
bad enough at his age."

An hour or two later found the rough but
worthy doctor driving at a sober pace towards
the bank.

"There goes Old Murder," cried the pert
chemist's assistant to a groom of the Prices',
who was talking to him at the door of the shop
in the High-street.

"Yes. There goes old four miles an hour. Did
you hear of young Harkness, and how he carried
on last night at the billiard-room? Swore he'd