“You forget,” said Clara, smiling, “the polite inquiry concerning the old gem’mun.”

“Ah! true; who the deuce can this Colonel be then, for young Jarvis is only a captain, I know; who do you think he is, Jane?”

“How do you think I can tell you, John?  But whoever he is, he owns the tilbury, although he did not drive it; and he is a gentleman both by birth and manners.”

“Why, Jane, if you know so much of him, you should know more; but it is all guess with you.”

“No; it is not guess—­I am certain of what I say.”

The aunt and sisters, who had taken little interest in the dialogue, looked at her with some surprise, which John observing, he exclaimed, “Poh:  she knows no more than we all know.”

“Indeed I do.”

“Poh, poh, if you know, tell.”

“Why, the arms were different.”

John laughed as he said, “That is a good reason, sure enough, for the tilbury’s being the colonel’s property; but now for his blood; how did you discover that, sis—­by his gait and actions, as we say of horses?”

Jane colored a little, and laughed faintly.  “The arms on the tilbury had six quarterings.”

Emily now laughed, and Mrs. Wilson and Clara smiled while John continued his teazing until they reached the rectory.

While chatting with the doctor and his wife, Francis returned from his morning ride, and told them the Jarvis family had arrived; he had witnessed an unpleasant accident to a gig, in which were Captain Jarvis, and a friend, a Colonel Egerton; it had been awkwardly driven in turning into the Deanery gate, and upset:  the colonel received some injury to his ankle, nothing, however, serious he hoped, but such as to put him under the care of the young ladies, probably, for a few days.  After the exclamations which usually follow such details, Jane ventured to inquire who Colonel Egerton was.

“I understood at the time, from one of the servants, that he is a nephew of Sir Edgar Egerton, and a lieutenant-colonel on half-pay, or furlough, or some such thing.”

“How did he bear his misfortune, Mr. Francis?” inquired Mrs. Wilson.

“Certainly as a gentleman, madam, if not as a Christian,” replied the young clergyman, slily smiling; “indeed, most men of gallantry would, I believe, rejoice in an accident which drew forth so much sympathy as both the Miss Jarvis’s manifested.”

“How fortunate you should all happen to be near!” said the tender-hearted Clara.

“Are the young ladies pretty?” asked Jane, with something of hesitation in her manner.

“Why, I rather think they are; but I took very little notice of their appearance, as the colonel was really in evident pain.”

“This, then,” cried the doctor, “affords me an additional excuse for calling on them at an early day, so I’ll e’en go to-morrow.”

“I trust Doctor Ives wants no apologies for performing his duty,” said Mrs. Wilson.