"Caudle, by Jove!" smiled the gentleman, "isn't it?"
"Well, it is; and it's none the worse o' that."
"All the better," exclaimed Mr. Marston, who chose to be on friendly terms with the old lady. "How can I thank you?"
"It's just the best thing in the world to make you sleep after a headache. You'll take some while it's hot."
"I can't thank you half enough," he said.
"I'll come back, sir, and see you by-and-by," and the good woman toddled out, leaving him alone with his gruel.
"I must not offend her." He poured some out into his cup, tasted it, and laughed quietly. "Sipping caudle! Well, this is rather a change for Richard Marston, by Jove! A change every day. Let us make a carouse of it," he said, and threw it out of the window.
Mr. Marston threw on his loose wrapper, and folded his muffler about his throat, replaced his hat, and with his cane in his fingers, was about to walk down to the town of Cardyllion. A word or two spoken, quite unsuspiciously, by Doctor Mervyn that morning, had touched a sensitive nerve, and awakened a very acute anxiety in Mr. Marston's mind. The result was his intended visit, at the fall of night, to the High-street of the quaint little town.
He was on the point of setting out, when Rebecca Torkill returned with a sliced lemon on a plate.
"Some likes a squeeze of a lemon in it," she observed, "and I thought I might as well leave it here."