"Oh, nonsense, Ralph! You have poked over those horrid books for days. You refused to come the last time I asked you, and that was centuries ago, before the storm began. I can't have you always saying 'No.'" "It is a pity I did not learn to say 'No' a little earlier in life," he said gloomily; and then, with a dismal sense that the old lady was mainly dependent on him for moral sunshine, he got up and laid his hand on her shoulder-- "'I have been the sluggard, and must ride apace, For now there is a lion in the way,'" he said, striving to speak cheerfully. "I declare, Ralph, any one would think, to hear you talk, that you were a worn-out _roué_. What would have become of me for the last two years if you had been in busy practice? You know quite well that one might walk from Land's End to John o' Groat's in search of your equal in general culture. Professor Anderson was saying to me only the other day that it was impossible to find you tripping. Whether the conversation turned on some unheard-of lake in Central Africa, or the philosophy of Hegel, or Coptic hymnology, or Cistercian hill architecture of the Transition Period, you were as much at home as if it was the weather that was under discussion. I told him he might have included the last new thing in bonnets." "No, no," said Ralph, laughing in spite of himself. "That was too bad. You know I draw the line there. These things are too wonderful for me." "But you will come with me, won't you?" "You coaxing old humbug!" he said affectionately, "I suppose I must. It will only mean burning a little more of the midnight oil. What havoc you must have wrought when you were young, if you understood a man's weakness for flattery as well as you do now!" "Ah, but I did not," she responded quietly, having gained her point. "It takes a lifetime to fathom it." He laughed again, kissed her on the forehead, and consented to have some tart after all. People were rather at fault who thought the old aunt poor company for the clever young doctor. In due time the sleek old coachman brought round the sleek old horse, and they set off at a quiet trot along the level highroad. "We must stop at Kirkstoun and speak to Hutchison about getting the wall put up," said Mrs Hamilton. "Well, it is like losing an old friend to see that tree! But we shall be at no loss for firewood during the winter. We shall have some royal Yule-logs, well seasoned, to welcome you back." "Do," he said. "There is nothing like them after meagre London fires; and you know we must make the most of my Christmas visit. If you keep pretty strong, I must not come back till midsummer, when my examination is over. It won't do to come a cropper at my time of life. Just look at that wheat!" The harvest had promised well before the storm began, but the corn which was still uncut had been beaten down level with the ground, and the "stocks" were sodden with rain.