“After all, I take it, the best way is to laugh at the incident. It was only last night, as I walked home here in the dark, I was thinking I had grown too old for adventures, and here comes one--at least it may prove so--to contradict me. “The car to convey me to town has arrived; and with loves to dear Lu and yourself, I am, as ever, yours, “Bk. Fossbrooke. “It is a great relief to me--it will be also to you--to learn that the magistrate can, if he please, examine me in private.” CHAPTER X. THE CHIEF AND HIS FRIEND A few days after the conversation just related in the chapter before the last, while the Chief Baron was undergoing the somewhat protracted process of a morning toilet,--for it needed a nice hand and a critical eye to give the curls of that wig their fitting wave, and not to “charge” those shrunken cheeks with any redundant color,--Mr. Haire was announced. “Say I shall be down immediately,--I am in my bath,” said the Chief, who had hitherto admitted his old friend at all times and seasons. While Haire was pacing the long dinner-room with solemn steps, wondering at the change from those days when the Chief would never have thought of making him wait for an interview, Sir William, attired in a long dark-blue silk dressing-gown, and with a gold-tasselled cap to match, entered the room, bringing with him a perfumed atmosphere, so loaded with bergamot that his old friend almost sneezed at it. “I hurried my dressing, Haire, when they told me you were here. It is a rare event to have a visit from you of late,” said the old man, as he sat down and disposed with graceful care the folds of his rich drapery. “No,” muttered the other, in some confusion. “I have grown lazy,--getting old, I suppose, and the walk is not so easy as it used to be five-and-twenty years ago.” “Then drive, sir, and don't walk. The querulous tone men employ about their age is the measure of their obstinate refusal to accommodate themselves to inevitable change. As for me, I accept the altered condition, but I defy it to crush me.” “Every one has not your pluck and your stamina,” said Haire, with a half-suppressed sigh. “My example, sir, might encourage many who are weaker.” “Any news of Lucy lately?” asked Haire, after a pause. “Miss Lendrick, sir, has, through her brother, communicated to me her attachment to a young fellow in some marching regiment, and asked my permission to marry him. No, I am incorrect. Had she done this, there had been deference and respect; she asks me to forward a letter to her father, with this prayer, and to support it by my influence.” “And why not, if he 's a good fellow, and likely to be worthy of her?” “A good fellow! Why, sir, you are a good fellow, an excellent fellow; but it would never occur to me to recommend you for a position of high responsibility or commanding power.” “Heaven forbid!--or, if you should, Heaven forbid I might be fool enough to accept it. But what has all this to do with marriage?”