"Well, I'll try not," said Mrs Luttrell, smoothing down the cloth fold over the leather apron, but looking rather flushed and excited as the cob trotted rapidly over the road. "You were saying, dear, something about Mr Hallam." "Yes. What of him?" "Of course we should not have sent him to the house when Milly was alone." "Humph! I suppose not. I say, old lady, you're not planning match-making to hook that good-looking cash-box, are you?" "What, Mr Hallam, dear? Oh, don't talk like that." "Humph!" ejaculated the doctor, making the whiplash whistle about the cob's ears; "you are not very fond of him, then?" "Well, no, dear, I can't say I am. He's very gentlemanly, and handsome, and particular, but somehow--" "Ah!" said the doctor, with a dry chuckle, "that's it--`somehow.' That's the place where I stick. No, old lady, he won't do. I was a bit afraid at first; but he seems to keep just the same: makes no advances. He wouldn't do." "Oh, dear me, no!" cried Mrs Luttrell, with quite a shudder. "Why not?" said the doctor sharply; "don't you like him?" "Perhaps it would not be just to say so," said Mrs Luttrell nervously, "but I'm glad Milly does not seem to take to him." "So am I. Curate would be far better, eh?" "And you charge me with match-making, my dear! It is too bad." "Ah! well, perhaps it is; but don't you think--eh?" "No," said Mrs Luttrell, "I do not. Millicent is very friendly to Mr Bayle, and looks upon him as a pleasant youth who has similar tastes to her own. And certainly he is very nice and natural." "And yet you object to his going to see the girl when we are out! There, get along, Betsy; we shall never be there." The whip whistled round the cob's head and the chaise turned down a pleasant woody lane, just as Christie Bayle lifted the latch and entered the doctor's garden. It was very beautiful there in the bright morning sunshine; the velvet turf so green and smooth, and the beds vying one with the other in brightness. There was no one in the garden, and all seemed strangely still at the house, with its open windows and flower-decked porch. Bayle had been requested to look in and execute a commission for the doctor, but all the same he felt guilty: and though he directed an eager glance or two at the open windows, he turned, with his heart throbbing heavily, to the end of the closely-clipped yew hedge, and passed round into the kitchen-garden, and then up one walk and down another, to the sunny-sheltered top, where the doctor grew his cucumbers, and broke down with his melons every year. There was a delicious scent from the cuttings of the lawn, which were piled round the frame, fermenting and giving out heat: and as the curate reached the glass lights, there was the interior hung with great dewdrops, which began to coalesce and run off as he raised the ends of the lights and looked in.