your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I am
happy to think, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is
the gentleman. Sit down, dear.'

Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with Uncle
Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty air, not the least
over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered how the homely
Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of hauteur.

A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only sign he
showed of feeling his repulse.

'How do _you_ do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after
his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.

'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.

My uncle bowed.

'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to
remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.

'I _sent_ for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic
tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised
for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no
doubt, you--I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while
he favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in
describing it as _robbery_, sir?'

'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
the worst, it would more resemble _thieving_, I think, than robbery.'

I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if
with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously
insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned
at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh,
and a glance at me.

'Your note says _waste_, I think, sir?'

'Yes, waste--the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the
selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm informed,' said
Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence
from the newspaper.

'Detectives? or private spies of your own--or, perhaps, my servants, bribed
with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded procedur