Sugg’s jovial and ruddy face, with its apple cheeks and merry, black eyes, was turned towards Jeffray as he came down the box-edged path. His broad and humanistical mouth wreathed itself into a hearty smile as he held out both his hands to the squire. “Thank Heaven, sir,” he said, “that I find you looking so alive and well. I had heard less flattering accounts of you. I am rejoiced to see you so speedily recovered.” Jeffray’s sympathies leaped out to this jovial old fellow with his twinkling eyes, and shrewd, smiling mouth. “I am mending fast,” he said, as he blushed and gripped the rector’s hands; “and I am glad to see you, sir, at last. Stott has forbidden me visitors hitherto, as you know, but I can turn the tables on him now. How is Mary?—well, and untouched, eh?” Sugg’s face beamed heartily. “Indeed, sir, Mary is Martha-like as ever. She sent you all her good wishes in my pocket. It is good to know that you are with us once more, Richard.” They turned by mutual and tacit consent towards the arbor of clipped yews that stood at the upper end of the gravel walk. The beds cut in the glistening, dew-drenched turf of the lawns were full of pansies and auriculas, whose gold-and-purple faces shone like rich enamels in the sun. The fountain below the terrace, a slim wood-nymph in the nude, was throwing spray from a cypress bough held above her head. Peacocks were sunning themselves upon the balustrades, and the white pigeons coquetted and basked on the red-tiled roof of the columbary. The rector took out his snuffbox as they seated themselves in the arbor, and, after a proper and dignified amount of snuffing and dabbing, returned the tortoise-shell case reflectively to his waistcoat-pocket. The courtly expressions of sympathy with regard to Miss Hardacre’s illness were duly forthcoming, and were met by Jeffray with all the sensibility and grace that he could muster. The rector laid his hat on the seat beside him, smoothed his wig, and approached Jeffray on the very subject that was filling the romanticist’s heart. “Will it tire you, sir,” he said, “if I mention a matter to you that has much exercised my mind of late?” Jeffray imagined that Sugg was for discussing the outbreak of small-pox in Rodenham and the necessity for keeping the pest-house in proper repair for the future. The rector nodded consentingly, but confessed to a more delicate and picturesque inspiration. “Perhaps you may remember, sir,” he said, “the girl, Bess Grimshaw, who caused you to come by a broken head in Pevensel?” Jeffray shot a rapid glance at Dr. Sugg’s face, and felt the blood rushing tumultuously to his cheeks. “Yes, I remember her,” he said, steadying himself. “The girl was not treated well in the hamlet, and, to be frank with you, I was sorry for her, and promised her help.” “So I understood, sir,” quoth the rector, tersely.