by a relation, and the certificates by first-rate
lunacy doctors."

"What on earth has that to do with it, madam,
when I am as sane as you are?"

"It has everything to do with it. Mr. Baker
could be punished for confining a madman in
this house without an order and two certificates;
but he couldn't for confining a sane person under
an order and two certificates."

Alfred could not believe this, but she convinced
him that it was so.

Then he began to fear he should be imprisoned
for years: he turned pale, and looked at her so
piteously, that to soothe him she told him sane
people were never kept in asylums now; they
only used to be.

"How can they?" said she. "The London
asylums are visited four times a year by the
commissioners, and the country asylums six times,
twice by the commissioners, and four times by
the justices. We shall be inspected this week or
next; and then you can speak to the justices:
mind and be calm; say it is a mistake; offer
testimony; and ask either to be discharged at
once or to have a commission of lunacy sit on
you; ten to one your friends will not face public
proceedings: but you must begin at the foundation,
by making the servants friendly—and by—
being calm." She then fixed her large grey eye
on him and said, "Now, if I let you dine with
me and the first-class patients, will you pledge
me your honour to 'be calm;' and not attempt
to escape?" Alfred hesitated at that. Her eye
dissected his character all the time. "I promise,"
said he at last with a deep sigh. "May I sit by
you? There is something so repugnant in the
very idea of mad people."

"Try and remember it is their misfortune,
not their crime," said Mrs. Archbold, just like a
matronly sister admonishing a brother from
school.

She then whistled in a whisper for Brown, who
was lurking about unseen all the time. He
emerged and walked about with Alfred, and,
by-and-by, looking down from a corridor, they saw
Mrs. Archboid driving the second-class women
before her to dinner like a flock of animals.
Whenever one stopped to look at anything, or
try and gossip, the philanthropic Archbold went
at her just like a shepherd's dog at a refractory
sheep, caught her by the shoulders, and drove
her squeaking headlong.

At dinner Alfred was so fortunate as to sit
opposite a gentleman, who nodded and grinned
at him all dinner with a horrible leer. He could
not, however, enjoy this to the full for a little
distraction at his elbow: his right hand neighbour
kept forking pieces out of his plate and
substituting others from his own; there was
even a tendency to gristle in the latter. Alfred
remonstrated gently at first; the gentleman
forbore a minute, then recommenced; Alfred laid a
hand very quietly on his wrist and put it back.
Mrs. Archbold's quick eye surprised this
gesture: "What is the matter there?" said she.

"Oh, nothing serious, madam," replied Alfred:
"only this gentleman does me the honour to
prefer the contents of my plate to his own."

"Mr. Cooper!" said the Archbold sternly.

Cooper, the head keeper, pounced on the
offender, seized him roughly by the collar,
dragged him from the table, knocking his chair
down, and bundled him out of the room with
ignominy and fracas, in spite of a remonstrance
from Alfred, "Oh, don't be so rough with the
poor man."

Then the novice laid down his knife and fork,
and ate no more. "I am grieved at my own ill
nature in complaining of such a trifle," said he
when all was quiet.

The company stared considerably at this
remark; it seemed to them a most morbid
perversion of sensibility; for the deranged,
thin-skinned beyond conception in their own persons,
and alive to the shadow of the shade of a wrong,
are stoically indifferent to the woes of others.

Though Alfred was quiet as a lamb all day,
the attendants returned him to the padded room
at night, because he had been there last night;
but they only fastened one ankle to the
bedpost: so he encountered his Lilliputians on
tolerably fair terms—numbers excepted; they
swarmed. Unable to sleep, he rose and groped
for his clothes. But they were outside the door,
according to rule.

He had no resource but to walk about instead
of lying down.

Day broke at last: and he took his breakfast
quietly with the first-class patients. It
consisted of cool tea in small basins, instead of cups,
and table-spoons instead of tea-spoons; and thick
slices of stale bread thinly buttered. A few
patients had gruel or porridge instead of tea. After
breakfast Alfred sat in the first-class patients'
room and counted the minutes and the hours till
Edward should come. After dinner he counted
the hours till tea-time. Nobody came; and he
went to bed in such grief and disappointment as
some men live to eighty without ever knowing.
But when two o'clock came next day, and no
Edward, and no reply, then the distress of his
soul deepened. He implored Mrs. Archbold to
tell him what was the cause. She shook her head
and said gravely, it was but too common; a man's
nearest and dearest were very apt to hold aloof
from him the moment he was put into an asylum.

Here an old lady put in her word. "Ah, sir,
you must not hope to hear from anybody in this
place. Why, I have been two years writing and
writing, and can't get a line from my own
daughter. To be sure she is a fine lady now, but
it was her poor neglected mother that pinched
and pinched to give her a good education, and
that is how she caught a good husband. But
it's my belief the post in our hall isn't a real
post: but only a box; and I think it is contrived
so as the letters fall down a pipe into that
Baker's hands, and so then when the postman
comes——"

The Archbold bent her bushy brows on this