n. If
the lad had seen a little less of the small gentry in the neighborhood,
and a little more of the great outside world at home and abroad, the
pleasure of cultivating Ozias Midwinter's society might have had fewer
attractions for him.

Conscious of the unsatisfactory result of his visit to the inn, Mr.
Brock felt some anxiety about the reception of his report when he found
himself once more in Mrs. Armadale's presence. His forebodings were soon
realized. Try as he might to make the best of it, Mrs. Armadale seized
on the one suspicious fact of the usher's silence about himself as
justifying the strongest measures that could be taken to separate him
from her son. If the rector refused to interfere, she declared her
intention of writing to Ozias Midwinter with her own hand. Remonstrance
irritated her to such a pitch that she astounded Mr. Brock by reverting
to the forbidden subject of five years since, and referring him to the
conversation which had passed between them when the advertisement had
been discovered in the newspaper. She passionately declared that the
vagabond Armadale of that advertisement, and the vagabond Midwinter at
the village inn, might, for all she know to the contrary, be one and the
same. Foreboding a serious disagreement between the mother and son if
the mother interfered, Mr. Brock undertook to see Midwinter again, and
to tell him plainly that he must give a proper account of himself, or
that his intimacy with Allan must cease. The two concessions which he
exacted from Mrs. Armadale in return were that she should wait patiently
until the doctor reported the man fit to travel, and that she should be
careful in the interval not to mention the matter in any way to her son.

In a week's time Midwinter was able to drive out (with Allan for his
coachman) in the pony chaise belonging to the inn, and in ten days the
doctor privately reported him as fit to travel. Toward the close of
that tenth day, Mr. Brock met Allan and his new friend enjoying the last
gleams of wintry sunshine in one of the inland lanes. He waited until
the two had separated, and then followed the usher on his way back to
the inn.

The rector's resolution to speak pitilessly to the purpose was in some
danger of failing him as he drew nearer and nearer to the friendless
man, and saw how feebly he still walked, how loosely his worn coat
hung about him, and how heavily he leaned on his cheap, clumsy stick.
Humanely reluctant to say