“Don’t mention it, sir,” quoth Dr. Sugg, stolidly. “The Lady Letitia is nervous, very nervous, sir, and, to be frank with you, Miss Hardacre, my betrothed—” The rector’s eyes twinkled as he broke in upon Jeffray’s apologies. “Do not vex yourself, sir,” he said. “I understand the matter perfectly. May I remark, Mr. Jeffray, that you look far from well yourself.” Richard stared in Dr. Sugg’s red and kindly face. “I—sir?” “You look feverish—uncommon feverish. I hope you are not going to be bedded, sir. How are you feeling, eh?” Richard forced a smile and wiped his forehead. “Rather hot in the head, Sugg, and stiff about the back.” The rector’s air of concern deepened. He screwed up his eyes still more and cocked his broad head seriously at Jeffray. “Shall I tell Stott to ride up to the priory to-morrow, sir? He will be in the village.” “I am much obliged to you, doctor.” “Forewarned—forearmed, Mr. Jeffray. I trust, though, it is nothing serious with you. My girl Mary’s all right as yet. I’ll send Stott on to you to-morrow.” XIX The Lady Letitia sat before the fire in the red parlor with a copy of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ lying upon her lap. In the fender lay a bundle of feathers which the old lady was burning, having heard that the smoke therefrom was very efficacious in the preventing of fevers. Very cross and querulous she felt, and very cross she looked as she sat there burning the feathers and taking snuff from time to time, for the Lady Letitia was not a woman fitted to play the Dorcas or to take pleasure in ministering to the sick. Pain, disease, and poverty were things she dreaded and detested as vulgar intruders, marring the polite gayeties of life. Hence she had shown no little impatience that morning when Peter Gladden had announced the fact that Mr. Richard was indisposed and would keep his bed. Gladden, bearer of cocoa and shaving-water, had found his master looking flushed and feverish, with dry lips and heavy eyes, and complaining of sickness and headache and sharp pain in the small of the back. Jeffray would not have the curtains drawn, for the sunlight seemed to intensify his feeling of nausea and the feverish throbbing in his head. He had ordered Gladden to send a groom down to Rodenham village to insure Surgeon Stott’s calling that day. As the Lady Letitia sat burning her feathers and muttering to herself in the red parlor, Peter Gladden’s black-coated figure appeared in the doorway, his colorless face imperturbable as ever. The dowager glanced at the butler irritably over her shoulder, and asked him, sharply, what he wanted. “Surgeon Stott, madam, requests the honor of speaking with you.” “What’s the man want with me, Gladden?” “It concerns Mr. Richard, madam.” The Lady Letitia scowled—and straightened her cap. “Tell the man to come in, Gladden,” she said. “Tell him to remain by the door. Of course his clothes reek of the small-pox.”