"You wicked little baggage! you know all the time." "How can I? when you have not yet told me." "By Gad! women are the most provoking creatures under the sun." "Not _all_, doctor," she pleaded, demurely, tapping the carpet impatiently with her foot. "Well, perhaps not all; but dooced near it. I am an old fool! Here am I bungling about and can't say what I mean!" "Can I help you, doctor?" "I wish you would, and tell me what to say to you, young baggage!" "Do be calm, doctor. Suppose I'm the old lady now, and that you were talking to me--I am not so very young you know, either." And she looked so demurely grave and elderly, that Aesculapius was charmed anew. "Well, I must say it. It's better to have it out, like a bad tooth; there's no good in keeping it in my head. I'm an old fool I know, madam; but I am really in earnest now, and I want you to listen seriously to me for a moment. The fact is, madam, Miss Kingscott that is--how fearfully warm it is!" At that moment, just when he was trembling on the verge of his disclosure, the shrill tones of Mrs Hartshorne's voice was heard without. "George! George!" she cried to the faithful servitor (she pronounced his name indeed _Jodge_! _Jodge_! speaking in her usual rapid manner, with quick utterance). "Who's that at the gate? Don't you let anybody in, man!" And our friends inside could hear her feet scrunching the gravel as she walked towards the gate in order to see who it was; so they went to the window also to look on, and the interesting conversation I have just detailed, was abruptly broken off at the indefinite point it had reached. "Plaise, marm," replied the rustic voice of George, "it's a leddy, marm, and she says as how she's coomed to say un." "I don't know any ladies, and don't want to know any, either; I wonder who is the flaunting creature? Get back to your work, you grinning baboon! I'll speak to the woman myself." At the gate, seated in her pony carriage, and accompanied by her two daughters, all dressed out and equipped in their state-costume for the payment of calls, was Lady Inskip. She looked astounded--for she had heard every word of the dialogue between the dowager and her henchman; and not only she had heard it, but her daughters also; and the grinning page, covered with sugar-loaf buttons, who sat perched on a mushroom sort of seat that sprang out as a sort of excrescence from behind the equipage. The old campaigner was surprised and astounded: but she tried to appear cool and collected as befitted her dignity: the languid Laura was as apathetic as ever; and the fast Carry seemed inclined to follow the Buttons example and laugh aloud. The dowager, in another moment, was on the scene of operations, and addressed the campaigner who sat in her pony carriage, with her forces drawn up in _echelon_ behind the gate. "Who are you, woman; and what do you want?"