.
    Miss Dale was beside Dr. Middleton. Clara came to them and took the other
side.
    »I was telling Miss Dale that the signal for your subjection is my
enfranchisement,« he said to her, sighing and smiling. »We know the date. The
date of an event to come certifies to it as a fact to be counted on.«
    »Are you anxious to lose me?« Clara faltered.
    »My dear, you have planted me on a field where I am to expect the trumpet,
and when it blows I shall be quit of my nerves, no more.«
    Clara found nothing to seize on for a reply in these words. She thought upon
the silence of Lætitia.
    Sir Willoughby advanced, appearing in a cordial mood.
    »I need not ask you whether you are better,« he said to Clara, sparkled to
Lætitia, and raised a key to the level of Dr. Middleton's breast, remarking, »I
am going down to my inner cellar.«
    »An inner cellar!« exclaimed the Doctor.
    »Sacred from the butler. It is interdicted to Stoneman. Shall I offer myself
as guide to you? My cellars are worth a visit.«
    »Cellars are not catacombs. They are, if rightly constructed, rightly
considered, cloisters, where the bottle meditates on joys to bestow, not on dust
misused! Have you anything great?«
    »A wine aged ninety.«
    »Is it associated with your pedigree, that you pronounce the age with such
assurance?«
    »My grandfather inherited it.«
    »Your grandfather, Sir Willoughby, had meritorious offspring, not to speak
of generous progenitors. What would have happened, had it fallen into the female
line! I shall be glad to accompany you. Port? Hermitage?«
    »Port.«
    »Ah! We are in England!«
    »There will just be time,« said Sir Willoughby, inducing Dr. Middleton to
step out.
    A chirrup was in the Rev. Doctor's tone: »Hocks, too, have compassed age. I
have tasted senior Hocks. Their flavours are as a brook of many voices; they
have depth also. Senatorial Port! we say. We cannot say that of any other wine.
Port is deep-sea deep. It is in its flavour deep; mark the difference. It is
like a classic tragedy, organic in conception. An ancient Hermitage has the
light of the antique; the merit that it can grow to an extreme old age; a merit.
Neither of Hermitage nor of Hock
