ing to persuade himself that indigestion had weakened him. He did
great injustice, however, to as fine a set of internal organs as ever
blessed a man of sixty.

At two o'clock next day he dressed himself for the campaign in
Montpellier Terrace; but when dressed he was again disorganised. He
found that he could not do it. He told himself over and over again
that with Miss Baker there need be no doubt; she, at least, would
accept him. He had only to smile there, and she would smile again. He
had only to say "dear Mary," and those soft eyes would be turned to
the ground and the battle would be won.

But still he could not do it. He was sick; he was ill; he could not
eat his breakfast. He looked in the glass, and found himself to be
yellow, and wrinkled, and wizened. He was not half himself. There
were yet three weeks before Miss Baker would leave Littlebath. It
was on the whole better that his little arrangement should be made
immediately previous to her departure. He would leave Littlebath for
ten days, and return a new man. So he went up to London, and bestowed
his time upon his son.

At the end of the ten days much of his repugnance had worn off. But
still the sound of that word "Sarah," and the peal of laughter which
followed, rang in his ears. That utterance of the verbiage of love
is a disagreeable task for a gentleman of his years. He had tried it,
and found it very disagreeable. He would save himself a repetition of
the nuisance and write to her.

He did so. His letter was not very long. He said nothing about "Mary"
in it, but contented himself with calling her his dearest friend. A
few words were sufficient to make her understand what he meant, and
those few words were there. He merely added a caution, that for both
their sakes, the matter had better not at present be mentioned to
anybody.

Miss Baker, when she received this letter, had almost recovered her
equanimity. Hers had been a soft and gentle sorrow. She had had
no fits of bursting grief; her wailings had been neither loud nor
hysterical. A gentle, soft, faint tinge of melancholy had come upon
her; so that she had sighed much as she sat at her solitary tea, and
had allowed her novel to fall uncared for to the ground. "Would it
not be well for her," she said to herself more than once, "to go to
Hadley? Would not any change be well for her?" She felt now that
Caroline's absence was a heavy blow to her, and that it would be well
that she should leave L