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easy to tell in his absolute passiveness. He seemed to have neither will nor impulse to speak, move, or act, though whatever was desired of him, he did with the implicit obedience that no one could bear to see. They put books near him, but he did not voluntarily touch one: they asked if he would write to his sister, and he took the pen in his hand, but did not accomplish a commencement. Ethel asked him if he were tired, or had a headache. 'Thank you, no,' he said; 'I'll write,' and made a dip in the ink. 'I did not mean to tease you,' she said; 'the mail is not going just yet, and there is no need for haste. I was only afraid something was wrong.' 'Thank you,' he said, submissively; 'I will--when I can think; but it is all too strange. I have not seen a lady, nor a room like this, since July three years.' After that Ethel let him alone, satisfied that peace was the best means of recovering the exhaustion of his long-suffering. The difficulty was that this was no house for quiet, especially the day after the master's return: the door-bell kept on ringing, and each time he looked startled and nervous, though assured that it was only patients. But at twelve o'clock in rushed Mr. Cheviot's little brother, with a note from Mary, lamenting that it was too wet for herself, but saying that Charles was coming in the afternoon, and that he intended to have a dinner-party of old Stoneborough scholars to welcome Leonard back. Meanwhile, Martin Cheviot, wanting to see, and not to stare, and to unite cordiality and unconsciousness, made an awkward mixture of all, and did not know how to get away; and before he had accomplished it, Mr. Edward Anderson was announced. He heartily shook hands with Leonard, eagerly welcomed him, and talked volubly, and his last communication was, 'If it clears, you will see Matilda this afternoon.' 'I did not know she was here.' 'Yes; she and Harvey are come to Mrs. Ledwich's, to stay over Sunday;' and there was a laugh in the corner of his eye, that convinced Ethel that the torrents of rain would be no protection. 'Papa,' said she, darting out to meet her father in the hall, 'you must take Leonard out in your brougham this afternoon, if you don't want him driven distracted. If he is in the house, ropes won't hold Mrs. Harvey Anderson from him!' So Dr. May invited his guest to share his drive; and the excitement began to seem unreal when the Doctor returned alone. 'I dropped him at Cocksmoor,' he said. 'It was Richard's notion that he would be quieter there--able to get out, and go to church, without being stared at.' 'Did he like it?' asked Gertrude, disappointed. 'If one told him to chop off his finger, he would do it, and never show whether he liked it. Richard asked him, and he said, "Thank you." I never could get an opening to show him that we did not want to suppress him; I never saw spirit so quenched.' Charles Cheviot thought it was a mistake to do what gave the appearance of suppression--he said that it was due to Leonard to welcome him as heartily as possible, and not to encourage false shame, where there was no disgrace; so he set his wife to fill up her cards for his dinner-party, and included in it Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Anderson, for the sake of their warm interest in the liberated prisoner. 'However, Leonard was out of the scrape,' as the Doctor expressed it, for he had one of his severe sore throats, and was laid up at Cocksmoor. Richard was dismayed by his passive obedience--a novelty to the gentle eldest, who had all his life been submitting, and now was puzzled by his guest's unfailing acquiescence without a token of preference or independence: and comically amazed at the implicit fulfilment of his recommendation to keep the throat in bed--a wise suggestion, but one that the whole house of May, in their own persons, would have scouted. Nothing short of the highest authority ever kept them there. The semblance of illness was perhaps a good starting-point for a return to the ways of the world; and on the day week of his going to Cocksmoor, Ethel found him by the fire, beginning his