"Here's my darling child Carry, who is so anxious, and will be so glad to go:" a dozen fair hands also held up gorgeous little silver-topped vinaigrettes. The doctor looked upon them all reflectively. "Humph!" he said, sententiously, "I don't think any of you will do. I shall take Miss Pringle here; she's undertaken the case, and she may as well complete the cure." The campaigner looked fearfully disgusted. She turned to Pringle, B.A., and said, as if speaking confidentially to them, but for the express benefit of the doctor and Lizzie, as she spoke so that all might hear her-- "Of course I would not like to interfere with a medical man, Mr Pringle; but do you think it is quite correct for a young girl like your sister to go off in that way with a young man without any chaperone?" "No indeed, Lady Inskip--no, indeed, Lady Inskip. Of course you know best; ah! and ah! Lizzie--" "Bless my soul!" said the doctor, excitedly, "I don't see why Miss Lizzie cannot go just as properly as your daughter, my lady! It's all nonsense, and she shall go!" And the doctor, without asking anybody's leave or license, at once handed Lizzie into the pony carriage by the side of Tom. Getting in himself, and telling the campaigner cordially "Good-day, my lady! good-day," he drove off triumphantly, although slowly, out from the glade, in and out of the trees, on to the road, and so slowly homeward to The Poplars, with our wounded hero lying back in Lizzie's arm--a very different plight to the gallant turn-out in which Tom had set out so hopefully in the morning for Lady Inskip's _fete champetre_. The campaigner was certainly defeated to some extent, but she was not discomfited. Oh! dear, no. She had secured one of her birds--Pringle-- at all events, for he was as devoted as she could wish to Laura; and as for the other, although he had been brought down, winged is the word--so unfortunately by the young imp, still, all was not lost there yet--she had only to act, and it would run hard, so she thought, if she did not succeed in throwing on one side "that artful little minx." She now bethought herself of her company. The day was far spent, and she was not going to let the whole thing break up in such an unsatisfactory manner. She was too knowing for that; consequently she threw cold water on the manifest sympathy for Tom. "Pooh!" she said, "it's not much. The doctor said he would be well in a day or two, it's only a mere scratch!"