o leave this to-morrow, so you may just give it over. And indeed
your things is all at the wash, so you can't;--and now I'll go down
for the pheasant."

Felix still declared very positively that he should go, but his
doing so did not shake Mrs. Baker. The letter-bag he knew did not
leave till eight, and as yet it was not much past five. He would see
Staveley again after his dinner, and then he would write.

When Augustus left the room in the middle of the day he encountered
Madeline wandering about the house. In these days she did wander
about the house, as though there were something always to be done in
some place apart from that in which she then was. And yet the things
which she did were but few. She neither worked nor read, and as for
household duties, her share in them was confined almost entirely to
the morning and evening teapot.

"It isn't true that he's to go to-morrow morning, Augustus, is it?"
said she.

"Who, Graham? Well; he says that he will. He is very anxious to get
to London; and no doubt he finds it stupid enough lying there and
doing nothing."

"But he can do as much there as he can lying by himself in his own
chambers, where I don't suppose he would have anybody to look after
him. He thinks he's a trouble and all that, and therefore he wants to
go. But you know mamma doesn't mind about trouble of that kind; and
what should we think of it afterwards if anything bad was to happen
to your friend because we allowed him to leave the house before
he was in a fit state to be moved? Of course Mr. Pottinger says
so--" Mr. Pottinger was the doctor. "Of course Mr. Pottinger says
so, because he thinks he has been so long here, and he doesn't
understand."

"But Mr. Pottinger would like to keep a patient."

"Oh no; he's not at all that sort of man. He'd think of mamma,--the
trouble I mean of having a stranger in the house. But you know mamma
would think nothing of that, especially for such an intimate friend
of yours."

Augustus turned slightly round so as to look more fully into his
sister's face, and he saw that a tear was gathered in the corner of
her eye. She perceived his glance and partly shrank under it, but she
soon recovered herself and answered it. "I know what you mean," she
said, "and if you choose to think so, I can't help it. But it is
horrible--horrible--" and then she stopped herself, finding that a
little sob would become audible if she trusted herself to further
words.

"You know w