patients during the winter, and was as good to him as a couple of hundred a-year. Lord Sandilands had come down armed with a letter of introduction to Dr. Bede, and had sent it on by his servant, accompanied by a brace of partridges from the Belwether estate, very soon after his arrival. Dr. Bede had acknowledged the receipt of letter and birds in a very neat little note, had looked-up Lord Sandilands in the _Peerage_--the only lay book in his medical library--and had left his card at his lordship's lodgings. Consequently, when, the morning after Miles's _fiasco_ at Hardriggs, Dr. Bede was summoned to come to Lord Sandilands at once, physician and patient knew as much about each other as, failing a personal interview, was possible. Symptoms detailed, examination made, Dr. Bede--a very precise and methodical little gentleman, with a singularly neatly-tied black neckerchief, towards which the eye of every patient was infallibly attracted, and a curiously stony and expressionless blue eye of his own, out of which nothing could ever be gleaned,--Dr. Bede, tightly buttoned to the throat in his little black surtout, gives it as his decided opinion that it is gout, "and not a doubt about it." Lord Sandilands, really half-gratified that he is literally laid by the heels by an aristocratic and gentlemanly complaint, combats the notion--no hereditary predisposition, no previous symptoms. Dr. Bede is firm and Lord Sandilands is convinced. An affair of time, of course; an affair very much at the patient's own will; entire abstinence from this and that and the other, and very little of anything else; perfect quiet and rest of mind and body--of mind quite as much as body--repeats the little doctor, with a would-be sharp glance at the patient, whose mental worry shows itself in a thousand little ways, all of which are patent to the sharp-eyed practitioner. Lord Sandilands promises obedience with a half laugh; he is very much obliged to Dr. Bede, he has thorough confidence in his comprehension and treatment of the case; there is no need to send to town for Dumfunk? Dr. Bede, with confidence dashed with humility, thinks not--of course it is for his lordship to decide; but he, Dr. Bede, has not the smallest fear, provided his instructions are strictly obeyed; and he is quite aware of the value of the charge Sir Charles Dumfunk has confided to him. So far all is arranged. The doctor will look in every day, and his lordship promises strict compliance with his instructions. So far all is arranged; but when the doctor is fairly gone, and the door is shut, and Lord Sandilands has heard the sound of the wheels of the professional brougham, low on the sand and loud on the stones, echo away, the old gentleman is fain to admit--first to himself, secondly to Miles, whom he summons immediately--that it is impossible for him to keep his word so far as being mentally quiet is concerned.