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198 moment more.' And so Felix was hurried on up to his bedroom—the old bedroom in which he had passed so many hours, and been so very uneasy. As he entered the room all that conversation with Augustus Staveley returned upon his memory. He had seen his friend in London, and told him that he was going down to Noningsby. Augustus had looked grave, but had said nothing about Madeline. Augustus was not in his father's confidence in this matter, and had nothing to do but to look grave. On that very morning, moreover, some cause had been given to himself for gravity of demeanour.

At the door of his room he met Mrs. Baker, and, hurried though he was by the judge's strict injunction, he could not but shake hands with his old and very worthy friend.

'Quite strong again,' said he, in answer to her tender inquiries.

'So you are, I do declare. I will say this, Mr. Graham, for wholesomeness of flesh you beat anything I ever come nigh. There's a many would have been weeks and weeks before they could have been moved.'

'It was your good nursing, Mrs. Baker.'

'Well, I think we did take care of you among us. Do you remember the pheasant, Mr. Graham?'

'Remember it! I should think so; and how I improved the occasion.'

'Yes; you did improve fast enough. And the sea-kale, Mr. Graham. Laws! the row I had with John Gardener about that! And, Mr. Graham, do you remember how a certain friend used to come and ask after you at the door? Dear, dear, dear! I nearly caught it about that.'

But Graham in his present frame of mind could not well endure to discuss his remembrances on that subject with Mrs. Baker, so he good-humouredly pushed her out of the room, saying that the judge would be mad if he delayed.

'That's true, too, Mr. Graham. And it won't do for you to take up Mr. Augustus's tricks in the house yet; will it?' And then she left the room. 'What does she mean by "yet"?' Felix said to himself as he went through the ceremony of dressing with all the haste in his power.

He was in the drawing-room almost within the fifteen minutes, and there he found none but the judge and his wife and daughter. He had at first expected to find Augustus there, but had been told by Mrs. Baker that he was to come down on the following morning. His first greeting from Lady Staveley was something like that he had already received up stairs, only made in less exuberant language. He was congratulated on his speedy recovery and made welcome by a kind smile. Then he shook hands with Madeline, and as he did so he observed that the judge was at the trouble to