"Don't prejudge them, my dear," said Mrs Alleyne with dignity. "We have great difficulty in getting good vegetables, Mr Oldroyd," she continued, "though we are in the country. We--er--we do not keep a gardener." "And the cottage people don't care to sell," said Oldroyd. "I have found that out. But you have a large garden here, Mrs Alleyne." "Yes," said the lady, coldly. "Ah," said Oldroyd, looking across at Moray Alleyne. "Now, there's your opportunity. Why not take to gardening?" "Take to gardening?" said Alleyne, shaking off the dreamy air that had come upon him as he mechanically ate what his mother had carefully placed upon his plate, that lady selecting everything, and her son taking it without question, as a furnace fire might swallow so much coal. "Yes; take to gardening, my good sir," said Oldroyd. "It is a very ancient occupation, and amply rewards its votaries." "I am well rewarded by much higher studies," said Alleyne, smiling; and Oldroyd was more than ever impressed by his voice and manner. "Exactly, but you must have change." Alleyne shook his head. "I do not feel the want of change," he said. "But your body does," replied Oldroyd, "and it is crying out in revolt against the burden your mind is putting upon it." "Why, doctor," said Alleyne, with his face lighting up more and more, "I thought you had stayed to dinner. This is quite a professional visit." "My dear sir, pray don't call it so," said Oldroyd. "I only want to give you good advice. I want you to give me better vegetables than these--from your own garden," he added, merrily, as he turned to Lucy, who was eagerly watching her brother's face. "Thank you, doctor," replied Alleyne shaking his head; "but I have no time." Oldroyd hesitated for a moment or two, as he went on with his repast of very badly cooked, exceedingly tough mutton; but a glance at his hostess and Lucy showed him that his words found favour with them, and he persevered in a pleasant, half-bantering strain that had, however, a solid basis of sound shrewd sense beneath its playful tone. "Hark at him!" he said. "Has not time! Now, look here, my dear Mr Alleyne--pray excuse my familiarity, for though we have been neighbours these past five years, we have not been intimate--I say, look here, my dear sir--potatoes! Thank you, Miss Alleyne. That one will do. I like them waxey. Now look here, my dear sir, you are an astronomer." "Only a very humble student of a great science, Mr Oldroyd," said the other, meekly. "Ah, well, we will not discuss that. At all events you are a mathematician, and deal in algebraic quantities, and differential calculus, and logarithms, and all that sort of thing." "Yes--yes," said Alleyne, going on eating in his mechanical way as if he diligently took to heart the epigrammatic teaching of the old philosopher--"Live not to eat, but eat to live." "Well then, my dear sir, I'll give you a calculation to make."