"

"I did not hear the name; it sounded like Haggerstone."

"Impossible, child; we know of no such person. What hour is it?"

"A few minutes past two."

"Oh dear! I fancied it had been four or five or six," sighed she,
drearily. "The amiable doctor has not made his report to-day of your
papa, and he went to see him immediately after breakfast."

"He told George that there was no amendment," said Sydney, gravely.

"He told George! Then he did not deign to tell me."

"You were not here at the moment. It was as he passed through the room
hurriedly."

"I conclude that I was in my dressing-room. But it is only in keeping
with Mr. Grounsell's studied disrespect, a line of conduct I grieve to
see him supported in by members of this family."

"Mr. Alfred Jekyl, my Lady," said a servant, "with inquiry for Sir
Stafford."

"You appear to know best, my dear, how your papa is. Pray answer thai
inquiry."

"Sir Stafford is not better," said Sydney to the servant.

"Who can all these people be, my dear?" said Lady Hester, with more
animation of manner than she had yet exhibited. "Jekyl is a name one
knows. There are Northamptonshire Jekyls, and, if I mistake not, it was
a Jekyl married Lady Olivia Drossmore, was it not? Oh, what a fool I am
to ask you, who never know anything of family or connection! And yet
I 'm certain I 've told you over and over the importance the actual
necessity of this knowledge. If you only bestowed upon Burke a tithe of
the patience and time I have seen you devote to Lyell, you 'd not commit
the shocking mistake you fell into t' other day of discussing the Duchess
of Dartley's character with Lord Brandford, from whom she was divorced.
Now you 'd never offend quartz and sandstone by miscalling their
affinities. But here comes the doctor."

If Dr. Grounsell had been intended by nature to outrage all
ultra-refined notions regarding personal appearance, he could not
possibly have been more cunningly fashioned. Somewhat below the middle
size, and squarely formed, his legs did not occupy more than a third of
his height; his head was preternaturally large, and seemed even larger
from a crop of curly yellowish hair, whose flaring ochre only rescued
it from the imputation of being a wig. His hands and feet were enormous,
requiring a muscular effort to move them that made all his gestures
grotesque and uncouth. In addition to these native graces, his clothes
were always made much too large for him, from