passed swiftly along her back. And then, for the first the in her life,
she thought her mother hardly gracious; and she wanted to say _she_ was
obliged to Mr. Alfred Hardie, but dared not, and despised herself for not
daring. Her composure was further attacked by Mrs. Dodd looking full at
her, and saying interrogatively, "I wonder how that young gentleman could
know about your being ill ?"

At this Julia eyed her plate very attentively, and murmured, "I believe
it is all over the town: and seriously too; so Mrs. Maxley says, for she
tells me that in Barkington if more than one doctor is sent for, that
bodes ill for the patient."

"Deevelich ill," cried Sampson heartily.

"For two physicians, like a pair of oars,
Conduck him faster to the Styjjin shores."*

* Garth.

Julia looked him in the face, and coldly ignored this perversion of Mrs.
Maxley's meaning; and Mrs. Dodd returned pertinaciously to the previous
topic. "Mr. Alfred Hardie interests me; he was good to Edward. I am
curious to know why you call him a puppy?"

"Only because he is one, ma'am. And that is no reason at all with 'the
Six.' He is a juveneel pidant and a puppy, and contradicts ivery new
truth, bekase it isn't in Aristotle and th' Eton Grammar; and he's such a
chatterbox, ye can't get in a word idgeways; and he and his
sister--that's my virgin martyr--are a farce. _He_ keeps sneerin' at her
relijjin, and that puts _her_ in such a rage, she threatens 't' intercede