"I--I don't think you ought to speak to--to Mr Bayle like that, Sir Gordon!" cried Mrs Luttrell, flushing and ruffling up like a hen. "If you only knew him as we do--" "Oh, hush, mamma dear!" said Mrs Hallam, smiling tenderly, and laying her hand upon her mother's arm. "Yes, my dear; but I cannot sit still and--" "Know him, ma'am!" said Sir Gordon sharply. "Oh, I know him by heart; read him through and through! He was never meant for a parson; he's too rough!" "Really, Sir Gordon, I--" "Don't defend me, Mrs Luttrell," said Bayle merrily. "Sir Gordon doesn't like me, and he makes this excuse for not coming to hear me preach." "Well, little dark eyes!" cried Sir Gordon, taking Julia's hand, and leading her to the seat. "Ah, that's better! I do get tired so soon, doctor. Well, little dark eyes!" he continued, after seating himself, and drawing the child between his knees, after which he drew a clean, highly-scented, cambric handkerchief from his breast pocket, and leaned forward. "Open your mouth, little one," he said. Julia obeyed, parting her scarlet lips. "Now put out your tongue." "Is grandpa teaching you to be a doctor?" said the child innocently. "No; but I wish he would, my dear," said Sir Gordon, "so that I could doctor one patient--myself. Out with your tongue." The child obeyed, and the baronet gravely moistened his handkerchief thereon, and, taking the soft little chin in one gloved hand, carefully removed a tiny purple fruit-stain. "That's better. Now you are fit to kiss." He bent down, and kissed the child slowly. "Don't like me much, do you, Julia?" "I don't know," said the child, looking up at him with her large serious eyes. "Sometimes I do, when you don't talk crossly to me; but sometimes I don't. I don't like you half so well as I do Mr Bayle." "But he's always setting you hard lessons, and puzzling your brains, isn't he?" "No," said the child, shaking her head. "Oh, no! we have such fun over my lessons every morning! But I do like you too--a little." "Come, that's a comfort!" said Sir Gordon, rising again. "There, I must go. I want to carry off Mr Bayle--on business." Mrs Hallam glanced sharply from one to the other, and then, to conceal her agitation, bent down over her child, and began to smooth her tangled curls. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE. SIR GORDON BOURNE ASKS QUESTIONS. "I want a few words with you, Bayle," said Sir Gordon, as the pair walked back towards the town. "Shall we talk here, or will you come to my rooms?" and he indicated Mrs Pinet's house, to which he had moved when Hallam married. "Your rooms! No, man; I never feel as if I can breathe in your stuffy lodgings. How can you exist in them?" "I do, and very happily," said Bayle, laughing. "Shall we go to your private room at the bank?" "Bless my soul! no, man!" cried Sir Gordon hastily. "The very last place. Let's get out in the fields, and talk there. More room, and no tattling, inquisitive people about. No Gemps."