Why was it that Miss Barrington, on that evening, was grander and statelier than ever? Was it some anticipation of the meditated change in their station had impressed her manner with more of pride? I know not; but true it is she received her visitors with a reserve that was actually chilling. To no end did Barrington exert himself to conceal or counteract this frigidity. In all our moral chemistry we have never yet hit upon an antidote to a chilling reception. [Illustration: 046] The doctor was used to this freezing process, and did not suffer like his companion. To him, life was a huge ice-pail; but he defied frost-bite, and bore it. The Major, however chafed and fidgeted under the treatment, and muttered to himself very vengeful sentiments about that peg he had determined to take her down from. “I was hoping to be able to offer you a nosegay, dear lady,” said Dill,--this was his customary mode of address to her, an ingenious blending of affection with deference, but in which the stronger accent on the last word showed the deference to predominate,--“but the rain has come so late, there's not a stock in the garden fit to present to you.” “It is just as well, sir. I detest gillyflowers.” The Major's eyes sparkled with a spiteful delight, for he was sorely jealous of the doctor's ease under difficulties. “We have, indeed, a few moss-roses.” “None to be compared to our own, sir. Do not think of it.” The Major felt that his was not a giving disposition, and consequently it exempted him from rubs and rebuffs of this sort. Meanwhile, unabashed by failure, the doctor essayed once more: “Mrs. Dill is only waiting to have the car mended, to come over and pay her dutiful respects to you, Miss Dinah.” “Pray tell her not to mind it, Dr. Dill,” replied she, sharply, “or to wait till the fourth of next month, which will make it exactly a year since her last visit; and her call can be then an annual one, like the tax-gatherer's.” “Bother them for taxes altogether,” chimed in Barrington, whose ear only caught the last word. “You haven't done with the county cess when there's a fellow at you for tithes; and they're talking of a poor-rate.” “You may perceive, Dr. Dill, that your medicines have not achieved a great success against my brother's deafness.” “We were all so at Walcheren,” broke in M'Cormick; “when we 'd come out of the trenches, we could n't hear for hours.” “My voice may be a shrill one, Major M'Cormick, but I'll have you to believe that it has not destroyed my brother's tympanum.” “It's not the tympanum is engaged, dear lady; it's the Eustachian tube is the cause here. There's a passage leads down from the internal ear--” “I declare, sir, I have just as little taste for anatomy as for fortification; and though I sincerely wish you could cure my brother, as I also wish these gentlemen could have taken Walcheren, I have not the slightest desire to know how.”