And take my advice in time, Doctor Percy--a wig, a proper wig, not one of your modern natural scratches, but a decent powdered doctor’s bob, would make you look ten years older at one slap, and trust me you’d get into practice fast enough then, and be sent for by many a sober family, that would never think of letting you within their doors without the wig; for, sir, you are too young and too handsome for a physician--Hey! what say you to the wig?” concluded Panton, in a tone of such serious, yet comical impatience, that Erasmus found it difficult to restrain a smile, whilst he answered that he really did not think his charms were so dangerous that it was necessary to disguise them by a wig; that as to his youth, it was an objection which every day would tend to lessen; and that he trusted he might obtain the credit of being a good physician if he could cure people of their diseases; and they would feel it to be a matter of indifference whether they were restored to health by a doctor in a wig or without one. “Indifference!” cried Panton, starting upright in his chair with passion. “I don’t know what you call a matter of indifference, sir; I can tell you its no matter of indifference to me--If you mean me; for say that with God’s mercy you carried me through, what then, if you are doing your best to break my heart after all--” Mr. Panton stopped short, for at this instant Constance came into the room, and her father’s look of angry suspicion, and her blush, immediately explained to Erasmus what had the moment before appeared to him unintelligible. He felt provoked with himself for colouring in his turn, and being embarrassed without any reason, but he recovered his presence of mind directly, when Constance, with a dignified ingenuous modesty of manner, advanced towards him, notwithstanding her father’s forbidding look, and with a sweet, yet firm voice, thanked him for his yesterday’s friendly visit to her mother. “I wonder you a’n’t ashamed of yourself, girl!” cried old Panton, choking with passion. “And I’m sure I wonder you a’n’t ashamed of yourself, Mr. Panton, if you come to that,” cried Mrs. Panton, “exposing of your family affairs this way by your unseasonable passions, when one has asked people to dinner too.” “Dinner or no dinner,” cried old Panton, and he must have been strangely transported beyond himself when he made that exclamation, “dinner or no dinner, Mrs. Panton, I will speak my mind, and be master in my own house! So, Doctor Percy, if you please, we’ll leave the ladies, and talk over our matters our own way, in my own room here within.”