Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite cool I was the most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings were excited I was prompt and bold. 'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace toward home; 'he'll know what to do.' But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance which the young officer proposed, told me that she could not see her father, that he was ill, and not speaking to anyone. 'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a guinea if ye had never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him to come, and see ye, an' welcome.' 'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything deceitful. Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you know very well, than the man in the moon.' I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word to Milly. The proportions of the house are so great, that it is a much longer walk than you would suppose from the hall-door to Uncle Silas's room. But I did not cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby, and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the influence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there could be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door. 'What is it _now_, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman, with her shrivelled fingers on the door-handle. 'Can I see my uncle for a moment?' 'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.' 'Not ill, though?' 'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden savage glare in my face, as if _I_ had brought it about. 'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.' 'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks neither--his own child!' 'Weakness, or what?' 'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day, and no one but old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's how 'twill be.' 'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough to look at it, and say I am at the door?' She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door in my face, and in a few minutes returned-- 'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared. Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended on a sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him, his long white hair hanging toward the ground, and that wild and feeble smile lighting his face--a glimmer I feared to look upon--his long thin arms lay by his sides, with hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and then, with a feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau de Cologne from a glass saucer placed beside him.