The doctor sighed deeply; turned himself round, not to sleep but to think, and rose the next morning to go in search of Mrs Mowbray, dreading the interview which he was afterwards to have with Adeline; for he did not expect to succeed in his application to her mother, and he could not now soften his intelligence with a 'but,' as he intended. 'True,' he meant to have said to her, 'your mother will not receive you; but if you ever want a home or a place of retirement, I have a cottage, and so forth.' 'Pshaw!' cried the doctor to himself, as these thoughts came across him on the road, and made him hastily let down the front window of the post-chaise for air. 'Did your honour speak?' cries the post-boy. 'Not I. But can't you drive faster and be hanged to you?' The boy whipped his horses.--The doctor then found that it was up hill--down went the glass again:--'Hold, you brute, why do you not see it is up hill?' For find fault he must; and with his wife he could not, or dared not, even in fancy. 'Dear me! Why, your honour bade me put it on.' 'Devilishly obedient,' muttered the doctor: 'I wish every one was like you in that respect.'--And in a state of mind not the pleasantest possible the doctor drove into town, and to the hotel where Mrs Mowbray was to be found. Dr Norberry was certainly now not in a humour to sooth any woman whom he thought in the wrong, except his wife; and, whether from carelessness or design, he did not, unfortunately for Adeline, manage the self-love of her unhappy mother. He found Mrs Mowbray with her heart shut up, not softened by sorrow. The hands once stretched forth with kindness to welcome him, were now stiffly laid one upon the other; and 'How are you, sir?' coldly articulated, was followed by as cold a 'Pray sit down.' 'Why, how ill you look!' exclaimed the doctor. 'I attend more to my feelings than my looks,' with a deep sigh, answered Mrs Mowbray. 'Your feelings are as bad as your looks, I dare say.' 'They are worse, sir,' said Mrs Mowbray piqued. 'There was no need of that,' replied the doctor: 'but I am come to point out to you one way of getting rid of some of your unpleasant feelings:--see, and forgive your daughter.' Mrs Mowbray started, changed colour, and exclaimed with quickness, 'Is she in England?' but added instantly, 'I have no daughter:--she, who was my child, is my most inveterate foe; she has involved me in disgrace and misery.' 'With a little of your own help she has,' replied the doctor. 'Come, come, my old friend, you have both of you something to forget and forgive; and the sooner you set about it the better. Now do write, and tell Adeline, who is by this time in London, that you forgive her.'