Then I should lose the pleasure of going on my knees in your service.
There's a pretty speech for you, eh! I'll tell you what--you'll make
a lady's man of me now, before you've done with me. I'm polishing
rapidly--I know I am."

"It's all right!" exclaimed Ellis, entering. "I found Mr. Oaklands lying
on the sofa in the library; he says he feels a little knocked up by his
walk this morning, and desired me to apologise for his absence, and wish
everybody good-night for him. I say, Fairlegh," continued he, drawing me
a little on one side, "has anything happened to annoy him?"

"Nothing particular, that I know of," replied I; "why do you ask?"

"I thought he looked especially cross; and he called our friend Lawless
an intolerable puppy, and wondered how any woman of common sense could
contrive to put up with him--that's all," rejoined Ellis.

"Fanny refused to play chess with him, because she thought it too late
in the evening;--that cannot have annoyed him?"

"Oh, no!" was the reply. "I see exactly what it is now: since the
granulating process has been going on so beautifully in the side, his
appetite has returned, and as he must not take any very active exercise
just yet, the liver is getting torpid. I must throw in a little blue
pill, and he'll be as good-tempered as an angel again; for, naturally,
there is not a man breathing with a finer disposition, or a more
excellent constitution, than Mr. Oaklands. Why, sir, the other day,
when I had been relating a professional anecdote to him, he called me a
'bloodthirsty butcher,' and I honoured him for it--no hypocrisy there,
sir."

~330~~ At this moment the carriage was announced, and we proceeded
to take our departure, Lawless handing Fanny in, and then standing
chattering at the window, till I was obliged to give him a hint that Sir
John would not like to have the horses kept standing in the cold.

"You've made a conquest, Miss Fan," said I, as we drove off: "I never
saw Lawless pay such attention to any woman before; even Di Clapperton
did not produce nearly so strong an effect, I can assure you."

"I am quite innocent of any intention to captivate," replied Fanny. "Mr.
Lawless amuses me, and I laugh sometimes at, and sometimes with, him."

"Still, my dear, you should be careful," interposed my mother; "though
it's play to you, it may be death to him, poor young man! I got into a
terrible scrape once in that way myself, when I was a girl; laughing and
joking with a