Before replying, Dr Barnaby glanced at all these young people in the midst of whom he found himself, and, simple and artless though his physiognomy was, he could not but guess the cause of their hilarity. He replied quietly: "I have not been overturned. A poor carter fell under the wheels of his vehicle; I was passing, and I helped him up." And the doctor took possession of a chair left vacant for him at the table. Unfolding his napkin, he passed a corner through the buttonhole of his coat, and spread out the rest over his waistcoat and knees. At these preparations, smiles hovered upon the lips of many of the guests, and a whisper or two broke the silence; but this time the doctor did not raise his eyes. Perhaps he observed nothing. "Is there much sickness in the village?" inquired Madame de Moncar, whilst they were helping the new comer. "Yes, madam, a good deal." "This is an unhealthy neighbourhood?" "No, madam." "But the sickness. What causes it?" "The heat of the sun in harvest time, and the cold and wet of winter." One of the guests, affecting great gravity, joined in the conversation. "So that in this healthy district, sir, people are ill all the year round?" The doctor raised his little gray eyes to the speaker's face, looked at him, hesitated, and seemed either to check or to seek a reply. Madame de Moncar kindly came to his relief. "I know," she said, "that you are here the guardian genius of all who suffer." "Oh, you are too good," replied the old man, apparently much engrossed with the slice of pasty upon his plate. Then the gay party left Dr Barnaby to himself, and the conversation flowed in its previous channel. If any notice was taken of the peaceable old man, it was in the form of some slight sarcasm, which, mingled with other discourse, would pass, it was thought, unperceived by its object. Not that these young men and women were generally otherwise than polite and kind-hearted; but upon that day the journey, the breakfast, the merriment and slight excitement that had attended all the events of the morning, had brought on a sort of heedless gaiety and communicative mockery, which rendered them pitiless to the victim whom chance had thrown in their way. The doctor continued quietly to eat, without looking up, or uttering a word, or seeming to hear one; they voted him deaf and dumb, and he was no restraint upon the conversation.