Polly was, in her way, a shrewd observer, and she felt that Stapylton's manner towards her was that species of urbane condescension with which a great master of a game deigns to play with a very humble proficient. He moved about the board with an assumption that said, I can checkmate you when I will! Now this is hard enough to bear when the pieces at stake are stained ivory, but it is less endurable: still when they are our emotions and our wishes. And yet with all this before her, Polly ordered and arranged and superintended and directed with an energy that never tired, and an activity that never relaxed. As for Mrs. Dill, no similar incident in the life of Clarissa had prepared her for the bustle and preparation she saw on every side, and she was fairly perplexed between the thought of a seizure for rent and a fire,--casualties which, grave as they were, she felt she could meet with Mr. Richardson beside her. The doctor himself was unusually fidgety and anxious. Perhaps he ascribed considerable importance to this visit; perhaps he thought Polly had not been candid with him, and that, in reality, she knew more of its object than she had avowed; and so he walked hurriedly from room to room, and out into the garden, and across the road to the river's side, and once as far as the bridge, consulting his watch, and calculating that as it now only wanted eight minutes of two o'clock, the arrival could scarcely be long delayed. It was on his return he entered the drawing-room and found Polly, now plainly but becomingly dressed, seated at her work, with a seeming quietude and repose about her, strangely at variance with her late display of activity. “I 've had a look down the Graigue Road,” said he, “but can see nothing. You are certain he said two o'clock?” “Quite certain, sir.” “To be sure he might come by the river; there's water enough now for the Cobham barge.” She made no answer, though she half suspected some reply was expected. “And of course,” continued the doctor, “they'd have offered him the use of it. They seem to make a great deal of him up there.” “A great deal, indeed, sir,” said she; but in a voice that was a mere echo of his own. “And I suspect they know why. I 'm sure they know why. People in their condition make no mistakes about each other; and if he receives much attention, it is because it's his due.” No answer followed this speech, and he walked feverishly up and down the room, holding his watch in his closed hand. “I have a notion you must have mistaken him. It was not two he said.” “I 'm positive it was two, sir. But it can scarcely be much past that hour now.” “It is seventeen minutes past two,” said he, solemnly. And then, as if some fresh thought had just occurred to him, asked, “Where 's Tom? I never saw him this morning.” “He 's gone out to take a walk, sir. The poor fellow is dead beat by work, and had such a headache that I told him to go as far as the Red House or Snow's Mill.”