While George Gilbert was thinking of Isabel Sleaford's pale face and black eyes; while, in his long rides to and fro among the cottages of his parish patients, he solemnly debated as to whether he ought to call upon Mr. Raymond when next he went to Conventford, or whether he ought to go to Conventford for the express purpose of paying his respects to Mr. Raymond,--the hand of Fate turned the wavering balance; and the makeweight which she threw into the scale was no heavier than the ordinary half-ounce of original composition which Government undertakes to convey, not exactly from Indus to the Pole, but from the Land's End to the Highlands, for the small charge of a penny. While George Gilbert hesitated and doubted, and argued and debated with himself, after the manner of every prudent home-bred young man who begins to think that he loves well, and sadly fears that he may not love wisely,--Destiny, under the form of a friend, gave him a push, and he went souse over head and ears into the roaring ocean, and there was nothing left for him but to swim as best he might towards the undiscovered shore upon the other side. The letter from Sigismund was dated Oakbank, Conventford, May 23rd, 1853. "Dear George," wrote the author of "The Brand upon the Shoulder-blade," "I'm down here for a few days with my uncle Charles; and we've arranged a picnic in Lord Hurstonleigh's grounds, and we want you to join us. So, if your patients are not the most troublesome people in the world, you can give yourself a holiday, and meet us on Wednesday morning, at twelve, if fine, at the Waverly Road lodge-gate to Hurstonleigh Park. Mrs. Pidgers--Pidgers is my uncle's housekeeper; a regular old dear, and _such_ a hand at pie-crusts!--is going to pack up a basket,--and I know what Pidgers's baskets are,--and we shall bring plenty of sparkling, because, when my uncle does this sort of thing, he _does_ do it; and we're to drink tea at one of Lord Hurstonleigh's model cottages, in his model village, with a model old woman, who's had all manner of prizes for the tidiest dust-holes, and the whitest hearth-stones, and the neatest knife-boards, and all that kind of thing; and we're going to make a regular holiday of it; and I shall forget that there's such a creature as 'the Demon of the Galleys' in the world, and that I'm a number behind with him,--which I am,--and the artist is waiting for a subject for his next cut. "The orphans are coming, of course, and Miss Sleaford; and, oh, by the bye, _I_ want you to tell me all about poisoning by strychnine, because I think I shall do a case or two in 'The D. of the G.' "Twelve o'clock, sharp time, remember! We come in a fly. You can leave your horse at Waverly.--Yours, S.S." * * * * *