"Yes, yes! your dear old friend; that's all very well; you treat me like a child, Miles. I know you mean it kindly; but I've been accustomed to act and think for myself for so long that I can't throw off the habit even now, when that dapper little fellow tells me I ought; and I must at once go into this business of Grace Lambert's. I have my own ideas on that matter, and I won't at all regard her decision as final, notwithstanding your solemn face and manner. Now, look here, my dear boy, it's of no use lifting up that warning finger; if you cross my wishes I shall become infinitely worse, and less bearable. I've always heard that gout is a disease in which, above all others, the patient must be humoured. I must see--There! you're jumping up at once--and quite enough to give me a sharp attack--simply because you thought I was going to name your divinity. Wasn't it so? I thought as much. Nothing of the sort; I was about to say that I must see Mrs. Bloxam at once. I have some very special business to talk over with her, and I should be much obliged if you, Miles, would take a fly and go over at once to Hardriggs and bring Mrs. Bloxam back with you." "I?--go over to Hardriggs after--" "Go over to Hardriggs! And why not? I'm sure you could not complain of your reception by Sir Giles and Lady Belwether; they have been most cordially polite to you on every occasion of your visiting them, and they are the host and hostess at Hardriggs, I believe. Besides, I ask you to do me a special favour, in doing which you need expose yourself to no disagreeables, even to seeing anyone whom you would rather not see." "You are quite right, and I will be off at once." "That's spoken like my dear good fellow! Goodbye, Miles, goodbye!--If he does come across her in the house or the grounds?" said the old gentleman, as the door closed behind his _protégé_. "Well, you never can tell; it might have been whim, a mere passing caprice, in which case she might be perfectly ready to revoke to-day; and no harm could be done by his meeting her again. Or it might be something more serious--is something more serious probably, for Gertrude is a girl with plenty of resolution and firm will. At any rate, I'm right in having Mrs. Bloxam here to talk it over, and I think I shall hold to the programme which I have already arranged in my mind."