I did not see Miss Fairlie until later in the day, at dinner-time.  She was not looking well, and I was sorry to observe it.  She is a sweet lovable girl, as amiable and attentive to every one about her as her excellent mother used to be—­though, personally speaking, she takes after her father.  Mrs. Fairlie had dark eyes and hair, and her elder daughter, Miss Halcombe, strongly reminds me of her.  Miss Fairlie played to us in the evening—­not so well as usual, I thought.  We had a rubber at whist, a mere profanation, so far as play was concerned, of that noble game.  I had been favourably impressed by Mr. Hartright on our first introduction to one another, but I soon discovered that he was not free from the social failings incidental to his age.  There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do.  They can’t sit over their wine, they can’t play at whist, and they can’t pay a lady a compliment.  Mr. Hartright was no exception to the general rule.  Otherwise, even in those early days and on that short acquaintance, he struck me as being a modest and gentlemanlike young man.

So the Friday passed.  I say nothing about the more serious matters which engaged my attention on that day—­the anonymous letter to Miss Fairlie, the measures I thought it right to adopt when the matter was mentioned to me, and the conviction I entertained that every possible explanation of the circumstances would be readily afforded by Sir Percival Glyde, having all been fully noticed, as I understand, in the narrative which precedes this.

On the Saturday Mr. Hartright had left before I got down to breakfast.  Miss Fairlie kept her room all day, and Miss Halcombe appeared to me to be out of spirits.  The house was not what it used to be in the time of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Fairlie.  I took a walk by myself in the forenoon, and looked about at some of the places which I first saw when I was staying at Limmeridge to transact family business, more than thirty years since.  They were not what they used to be either.

At two o’clock Mr. Fairlie sent to say he was well enough to see me.  He had not altered, at any rate, since I first knew him.  His talk was to the same purpose as usual—­all about himself and his ailments, his wonderful coins, and his matchless Rembrandt etchings.  The moment I tried to speak of the business that had brought me to his house, he shut his eyes and said I “upset” him.  I persisted in upsetting him by returning again and again to the subject.  All I could ascertain was that he looked on his niece’s marriage as a settled thing, that her father had sanctioned it, that he sanctioned it himself, that it was a desirable marriage, and that he should be personally rejoiced when the worry of it was over.  As to the settlements, if I would consult his niece, and afterwards dive as deeply as I pleased into my own knowledge of the family affairs, and get everything ready, and limit his share in the business, as guardian, to saying Yes, at the right moment—­ why, of course he would meet my views, and everybody else’s views, with infinite pleasure.  In the meantime, there I saw him, a helpless sufferer, confined to his room.  Did I think he looked as if he wanted teasing?  No.  Then why tease him?