find Tom still waiting for her, when the distribution and
fitting of the blue-ribboned hats was over, and matters arranged for
the march of the children to see the wedding, and to dine afterwards at
the Grammar-school hall.

'O, Tom, I did not expect to find you here.'

'It is not fit for you to be walking about alone on a Whit Monday.'

'I am very glad to have you, but I am past that.'

'Don't talk nonsense; girls are girls till long past your age,' said
Tom.

'It is not so much age, as living past things,' said Ethel.

'It was not only that, added Tom; 'but I've more to say to you, while
one can be sure of a quiet moment. Have you heard anything about that
place?' and he pointed in the direction of the Vintry Mill.

'I heard something of an intention to part with it, and have been
watching for an advertisement; but I can see none in the Courant, or on
the walls.'

'Mind he does not slip off unawares.'

'I don't know what to do now that old Hardy is cut off from us. I
tried to stir up Dr. Spencer to go and investigate, but I could not
tell him why, and he has not the same interest in going questing about
as he used to have. People never will do the one thing one wants
particularly!'

Tom's look and gesture made her ask if he knew of anything wrong with
their old friend; and in return, she was told that Dr. Spencer's recent
visit to London had been to consult Sir Matthew Fleet. The foundations
of mortal disease had been laid in India, and though it might long
remain in abeyance, there were from time to time symptoms of activity;
and tedious lingering infirmity was likely to commence long before the
end.

'And what do you think the strange old fellow charged me as we walked
away from dining at Fleet's?'

'Secrecy, of course,' returned the much-shocked Ethel.

'One does keep a secret by telling you. It was to have my eye on some
lodging with a decent landlady, where, when it is coming to that, he
can go up to be alone, out of the way of troubling Dick, and of all of
you.'

'Tom, how dreadful!'

'I fancy it is something of the animal instinct of creeping away alone,
and partly his law to himself not to trouble Dick.'

'An odd idea of what would trouble Dick!'

'So I told him; but he said, after seeing what it cost my father to
watch dear Margaret's long decay, he would never entail the like on
him. It is queer, and it is beautiful, the tender way he has about my
father, treating him like a pet