’Never mind answering me now.  Etta shall write to you in proper form, and you shall fix your own evening.  Now I have hindered you sufficiently, so I will take my leave,’—­which he did, but I heard him some time afterwards talking to Nathaniel in the porch.

A few days after this I received a civil little note from Miss Darrell, pressing me to spend a long evening with them, and begging me to bring my prettiest songs.

I made the rather lame excuse that I was much engaged with my new patient, and fixed the latest day that I could,—­the very last evening before I was to leave for London.  Mr. Hamilton met me a few hours afterwards, and asked me rather drily what my numerous engagements could be.

‘You are the most unsociable of your sex,’ he added, when I had no answer to make to this.  ’I shall take care that you are properly punished, for neither Cunliffe nor Tudor shall be asked to meet you.  Etta was sure you would like one or both to come, but I put my veto on it at once.’

‘Then you were very disagreeable,’ I returned laughingly.  ’I wanted Uncle Max very much.’  But he only shook his head at me good-humouredly, and scolded me for my want of amiability.

I determined, when the evening came, that he should not find fault with me in any way.  I was rather in holiday mood; my patient was going on well, and his mother was a neat, capable body, and might be trusted to look after him.  No other cases had come to me, and I might leave Heathfield with a clear conscience.  Uncle Max would miss me, but an old college friend was coming to stay at the vicarage, so I could be better spared.  I had seen a great deal of Mr. Tudor lately.  I often met him in the village, and he always turned back and walked with me:  he met me on this occasion, and walked to the gates of Gladwyn.  Indeed, he detained me for some minutes in the road, trying to extract particulars about the wedding.

‘Miss Jocelyn is to be bridesmaid, then?’ describing a circle with his stick in the dust.

’Yes.  Poor Sara is afraid that she will be quite overshadowed by Jill’s bigness; she has made her promise not to stand quite close.  They have got a match for her.  Grace Underley is as tall as Jill, and very fair.  Sara calls them her night and morning bridesmaids.’

’I think I shall be in London on the fourteenth.  I thought, Miss Garston, that there was a prejudice to weddings in May.’

’Yes; but Sara laughs at the idea, and Colonel Ferguson says it is all nonsense.  I did not know you were coming to town so soon.’

‘Some of my people will be up then,’ he said absently.  ’Perhaps I shall have a peep at you all; but of course’—­rather hastily—­’I shall not call at Hyde Park Gate until the wedding is over.’