406
WYLDEITS HAJVD.
"Well, Mr. Larcom, pray sit down. And can I do
anything for you, Mr. Larcom?" said the good attorney,
waving his long hand toward a vacant chair.
"A note, Sir."
"Oh, yes; very well." And the tall attorney rose,
and, facing the rural prospect at his window, with his
back to Mr. Larcom, he read, with a faint smile, the few
lines, in a delicate hand, consenting to the sale of Five
Oaks."
He had to look for a time at the distant prospect to al-
low his smile to subside, and to permit the conscious tri-
umph which he knew beamed through his features to dis-
charge itself and evaporate in the light and air before
turning to Mr Larcom, which he did with an air of sudden
recollection.
"Ah — all right, I was forgetting; I must give you a
line."
So he did, and hid away the note in his despatch-box,
and said —
"The family all quite well, I hope?" whereat Larcom
shook his head.
"My mistress " — he always called her so, and Lake,
the Capting — " has been takin' on hoffle, last night, what-
ever come betwixt 'em. She was fainted outright in her
chair in the Dutch room; and he said it was the old gen-
tleman — old Flannels, we calls him, for shortness — but
lor' bless you, she's too used to him to be frightened, and
that's only a make-belief; and Miss Dipples. her maid,
she says as how she was worse upstairs, and she's made up
again with Miss Lake, which she was very glad, no doubt,
of the making friends, I do suppose; but it's a bin a bad
row and I suspeck amost he's used vilins."
'Compulsion, I suppose; you mean constraint?" sug-
gested Larkin, very curious.