‘How do you do, Miss?’ he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.

‘I think I may as well take a chair, sir,’ said Doctor Bryerly, sitting down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.

My uncle bowed.

’You understand the nature of the business, sir.  Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to remain?’ asked Doctor Bryerly.

‘I sent for her, sir,’ replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised for a moment contemptuously.  ’This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper to insinuate that I am robbing you.  It surprises me a little, and, no doubt, you—­I’ve nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while he favours me more particularly with his views.  I’m right, I think, in describing it as robbery, sir?’

‘Why,’ said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter as one of right, and not of feeling, ’it would be, certainly, taking that which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at the worst, it would more resemble thieving, I think, than robbery.’

I saw Uncle Silas’s lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously insulting answer.  My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned at the gaming-table.  He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh, and a glance at me.

‘Your note says waste, I think, sir?’

’Yes, waste—­the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I’m informed,’ said Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence from the newspaper.

’Detectives? or private spies of your own—­or, perhaps, my servants, bribed with my poor brother’s money?  A very high-minded procedure.’

‘Nothing of the kind, sir.’

My uncle sneered.

’I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence, and the question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to see that this inexperienced young lady is not defrauded.’

‘By her own uncle?’

‘By anyone,’ said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability that excited my admiration.

‘Of course you come armed with an opinion?’ said my smiling uncle, insinuatingly.

’The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders.  These bigwigs don’t return their cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.’

‘Then you have no opinion?’ smiled my uncle.

’My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there can be no question raised, but for form’s sake.’

’Yes, for form’s sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an ingenious apoth—­I beg pardon, physician—­are sufficient warrant for telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that I am defrauding her!’