saw her lying back in a chair, wearied
looking and pale, she asked,--

"Are you ill, dear?"

"No; but I am actually tired. Lady Augusta has been an hour here, and
she has talked till my head turned."

"I feel for you sincerely. She gave me one of the worst headaches I ever
had, and then made my illness a reason for staying all the evening here
to bathe my temples."

"That was good-natured, however."

"So I'd have thought, too, but that she made George attend her with
the ice and the eau-de-cologne, and thus maintained a little ambulant
flirtation with him, that, sick as I was, almost drove me mad."

"She means nothing, I am certain, by all these levities, or, rather,
she does not care what they mean; but here come our brothers, and I am
eager for news, if they have any."

"Where's George?" asked Julia, as Augustus entered alone.

"Sir Marcus something caught him at the gate, and asked to have five
minutes with him."

"That means putting off dinner for an hour at least," said she, half
pettishly. "I must go and warn the cook."

CHAPTER XLVII. A PROPOSAL IN FORM.

When Sir Marcus Cluff was introduced into L'Estrange's study, his first
care was to divest himself of his various "wraps," a process not very
unlike that of the _Hamlet_ gravedigger. At length, he arrived at a
suit of entire chamois-leather, in which he stood forth like an enormous
frog, and sorely pushed the parson's gravity in consequence.

"This is what Hazeldean calls the 'chest-sufferer's true cuticle,'
Nothing like leather, my dear sir, in pulmonic affections. If I 'd have
known it earlier in life, I 'd have saved half of my left lung, which is
now hopelessly hepatized."

L'Estrange looked compassionate, though not very well knowing what it
was he had pity for.

"Not," added the invalid, hastily, "that even this constitutes a grave
constitutional defect. Davies says, in his second volume, that among
the robust men of England you would not find one in twenty without some
lungular derangement. He percussed me all over, and was some time before
he found out the blot." The air of triumph in which this was said showed
L'Estrange that he too might afford to look joyful.

"So that, with this reservation, sir, I do consider I have a right to
regard myself, as Boreas pronounced me, sound as a roach."

"I sincerely hope so."

"You see, sir, I mean to be frank with you. I descend to no
concealments."

It was not very easy for L'Estrange