Willoughby met him, and rewarded the colonel’s frankness in stating that he was on the look-out for Miss Middleton to take his leave of her, by furnishing him the occasion.  He conducted his friend Horace to the Blue Room, where Clara and Laetitia were seated circling a half embrace with a brook of chatter, and contrived an excuse for leading Laetitia forth.  Some minutes later Mrs. Mountstuart called aloud for the colonel, to drive him away.  Willoughby, whose good offices were unabated by the services he performed to each in rotation, ushered her into the Blue Room, hearing her say, as she stood at the entrance:  “Is the man coming to spend a day with me with a face like that?”

She was met and detained by Clara.

De Craye came out.

“What are you thinking of?” said Willoughby.

“I was thinking,” said the colonel, “of developing a heart, like you, and taking to think of others.”

“At last!”

“Ay, you’re a true friend, Willoughby, a true friend.  And a cousin to boot!”

“What! has Clara been communicative?”

“The itinerary of a voyage Miss Middleton is going to make.”

“Do you join them?”

“Why, it would be delightful, Willoughby, but it happens I’ve got a lot of powder I want to let off, and so I’ve an idea of shouldering my gun along the sea-coast and shooting gulls:  which’ll be a harmless form of committing patricide and matricide and fratricide—­for there’s my family, and I come of it!—­the gull!  And I’ve to talk lively to Mrs. Mountstuart for something like a matter of twelve hours, calculating that she goes to bed at midnight:  and I wouldn’t bet on it; such is the energy of ladies of that age!”

Willoughby scorned the man who could not conceal a blow, even though he joked over his discomfiture.

“Gull!” he muttered.

“A bird that’s easy to be had, and better for stuffing than for eating,” said De Craye.  “You’ll miss your cousin.”

“I have,” replied Willoughby, “one fully equal to supplying his place.”

There was confusion in the hall for a time, and an assembly of the household to witness the departure of Dr. Middleton and his daughter.  Vernon had been driven off by Dr. Corney, who further recommended rest for Mr. Dale, and promised to keep an eye for Crossjay along the road.

“I think you will find him at the station, and if you do, command him to come straight back here,” Laetitia said to Clara.  The answer was an affectionate squeeze, and Clara’s hand was extended to Willoughby, who bowed over it with perfect courtesy, bidding her adieu.

So the knot was cut.  And the next carriage to Dr. Middleton’s was Mrs. Mountstuart’s, conveying the great lady and Colonel De Craye.

“I beg you not to wear that face with me,” she said to him.

“I have had to dissemble, which I hate, and I have quite enough to endure, and I must be amused, or I shall run away from you and enlist that little countryman of yours, and him I can count on to be professionally restorative.  Who can fathom the heart of a girl!  Here is Lady Busshe right once more!  And I was wrong.  She must be a gambler by nature.  I never should have risked such a guess as that.  Colonel De Craye, you lengthen your face preternaturally, you distort it purposely.”