it, won't you? I want to have a talk with you besides.--Lunch, please,
immediately. I ordered it to be ready at one--now it is half-past. We
can't have our time wasted this way.--Dr Edward, please, you'll stay."

The doctor gazed with ever-increasing amazement at the little speaker.
Nobody else had spoken a word. Fred had nodded to him sullenly. Fred's
wife had sunk back on the sofa--everybody seemed to recognise Nettie
as supreme. He hesitated, it must be confessed, to put his grievances
so entirely aside as to sit down in perfect amity with Fred and his
household; but to refuse to drive Nettie to St Roque's was impossible.
The blood rushed to the doctor's face at the thought. What the world
of Carlingford would say to see his well-known vehicle proceeding
down Grange Lane, through Dr Marjoribanks's territories, under such
circumstances, was a question he did not choose to consider; neither did
he enter too minutely into the special moment at which his next patient
might be expecting him. The young man was under the spell, and did not
struggle against it. He yielded to the invitation, which was a command.
He drew near the table at which Nettie, without hesitation, took the
presiding place. A dull amount of conversation, often interrupted by
that lively little woman, rose in the uncongenial party. Nettie cut up
the meat for those staring imps of children--did them all up in snowy
napkins--kept them silent and in order. She regulated what Susan was to
have, and which things were best for Fred. She appealed to Dr Edward
perpetually, taking him into her confidence in a way which could not
fail to be flattering to that young man, and actually reduced to
the calmness of an ordinary friendly party this circle so full of
smouldering elements of commotion. Through all she was so dainty, so
pretty, her rapid fingers so shapely, her eager talk so sweet-toned,
that it was beyond the power of mortal man to remain uninterested. It
was a development of womankind unknown to Dr Rider. Bessie Christian had
exhausted the race for him until now; but Nettie was a thousand times
more piquant than Bessie Christian. He gazed and wondered, and moralised
secretly in his own mind, what was to become of the girl?--what could
she do?

"You have left some of your things at my house, Fred," said the doctor,
making an attempt to approach his sullen brother, who evidently expected
no overtures of friendship.

"Yes. Mrs Rider, you see, arrived unexpe