“Do you know this is rather coolish? Where on earth are the blankets? Find one, won’t you? and throw it over me.” “Here they are, on the floor! There! Sleep well, poor boy! ‘Oh don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? Sweet Alice with h-a-i-r so brown.’” “You rhyme with the sinners who came to scoff, but remained to pray. You seem to yourself to sing, but appear to me to b-b-b-bray.” “Good! There is life in the old boy yet!” CHAPTER XVI. Next morning Charley and I called at the Carters’ to give the Don the invitation to visit Elmington, but found he had gone out for his first walk since his accident, to test, at Mrs. Carter’s instance, his strength before going into his own quarters. Charley was compelled, therefore, to leave the city without seeing him. In the evening I called at his rooms. Knocking at his sitting-room door, I was invited to enter, and found him sitting by a table reading a small book, which he closed, but held in his hand as he rose and came forward to greet me. “Reading?” began I, bowing and glancing casually towards the little book, the back of which was turned away from me. “Yes,” replied he, but without looking at the book; “getting through an evening alone I find rather dull work after my recent charming experience. Take a seat. Will you have a pipe, or do you prefer a cigar? A pipe? You will find the tobacco very good.” And walking to a small set of shelves near the door, he placed the little book upon it,—a circumstance too trivial to mention, did it not afford a characteristic example of the quiet but effectual way the Don had of nipping in the bud any conversation which was about to take a line he did not wish it to follow. I suppose we had been chatting for half an hour before I alluded to my errand. “Mr. Frobisher wished to see me particularly, you say?” “Yes; Charley heard you say one day that you were fond of shooting; and as there is fine sport to be had in Leicester, he thought it might be agreeable to you to—” The smile of polite curiosity with which he heard that Charley had had something to say to him rapidly faded as I spoke, and there came into his countenance a look of such intense seriousness, nay, even of subdued and suffering agitation, that, for a moment, I lost my self-possession in my surprise, but managed to finish my message in a stumbling sort of way. As for the Don, anticipating, apparently, from my opening words what that message was to be, he seemed hardly conscious that it was ended. He sat, for a moment, with his head resting in the palm of his hand, his piercing eyes fixed upon the floor; but seeming suddenly to realize that this was a queer way of meeting a courtesy, he quickly raised his head. “Thanks, thanks,” said he, with a forced smile, but with apologetic emphasis. “Charley—I beg pardon—Mr. Frobisher is very kind,—very kind indeed! Yes, I should immensely enjoy having a tilt once more at the partridges.[1] Very much indeed.”