Upon that day Jeremiah Pamflett, arrayed in a brand-new suit of clothes, with a flower in his button-hole (copying Captain Ablewhite as the pink of fashion), and carrying a bouquet of flowers for the girl whom he was now to commence wooing openly, had the satisfaction, while sitting in the railway carriage which was to convey him to Parksides, of seeing her and her friends hurry on to the platform just as the signal was given for the departure of the train. They had had the misfortune to get into a growler, the driver of which, in addition to crawling to the railway station at the rate of three miles an hour, stopped on the road to exchange the reverse of urbanities with a rival cabby who had excited his ire. Fred's urgent requests to the driver to get along quickly, so that they might catch the train, were received with supreme indifference; he was an old hand, and insisted upon having his little joke, the consequence of which was that they arrived too late, and had to wait three-quarters of an hour for the next train. It was no serious trouble to Fred. A house, a railway station, a barn, England, Timbuctoo--they were all the same to him so long as Phoebe was with him. Jeremiah rushed to his mother with the news. "What does it mean?" he asked. "Don't trouble yourself," said Mrs. Pamflett. "Perhaps it is all for the best." "You talk like a fool," snarled Jeremiah, who was never happier than when he had some one to bully. "How can it be all for the best?" "It will bring matters to a head, Jeremiah. It is much better for our enemies to work in the light than in the dark. You have nothing to fear. Miser Farebrother and I had a conversation to-day about you. He told me that everything was settled, and that you and Phoebe were to be married. He is very ill and frightened. The doctor told him if he wasn't very careful he would die. He has been moaning and groaning ever since. 'You mustn't think,' the doctor said to him, 'of stirring out of the house.'" "Ah!" said Jeremiah, with a sigh of relief, "that is good. Anything more? And was there any special reason for the doctor giving him that caution?" "It came," said Mrs. Pamflett, "through his expressing a wish to go to London." "What for?" said Jeremiah, his face growing very white. "I can't tell you," replied Mrs. Pamflett; "except it was to look after the business." "To pry into what I am doing! Let him be careful, or it will be the worse for him!" "Jeremiah!" "Don't 'Jeremiah' me! I won't stand it! What do I care for that--that image? Do you think I will have him come spying into my affairs? Let him look to himself--that's all I've got to say." "At any rate," said Mrs. Pamflett, whose face had grown as white as her son's, "he can't leave Parksides." "You take care that he doesn't--that's what you've got to see to. If he gets any better, make it impossible for him to leave."