Perhaps my reader will say, and say with justice, that I ought to have been as anxious about poor Farmer Brownrigg as about the beautiful lady.  But the farmer liai given me good reason to hope some progress in him after the way he had given in about Jane Rogers.  Positively I had caught his eye during the sermon that very day.  And, besides—­but I will not be a hypocrite; and seeing I did not certainly take the same interest in Mr Brownrigg, I will at least be honest and confess it.  As far as regards the discharge of my duties, I trust I should have behaved impartially had the necessity for any choice arisen.  But my feelings were not quite under my own control.  And we are nowhere, told to love everybody alike, only to love every one who comes within our reach as ourselves.

I wonder whether my old friend Dr Duncan was right.  He had served on shore in Egypt under General Abercrombie, and had of course, after the fighting was over on each of the several occasions—­the French being always repulsed—­exercised his office amongst the wounded left on the field of battle.—­“I do not know,” he said, “whether I did right or not; but I always took the man I came to first—­French or English.”—­I only know that my heart did not wait for the opinion of my head on the matter.  I loved the old man the more that he did as he did.  But as a question of casuistry, I am doubtful about its answer.

This digression is, I fear, unpardonable.

I made Mrs Pearson sit down with me to dinner, for Christmas Day was not one to dine alone upon.  And I have ever since had my servants to dine with me on Christmas Day.

Then I went out again, and made another round of visits, coming in for a glass of wine at one table, an orange at another, and a hot chestnut at a third.  Those whom I could not see that day, I saw on the following days between it and the new year.  And so ended my Christmas holiday with my people.

But there is one little incident which I ought to relate before I close this chapter, and which I am ashamed of having so nearly forgotten.

When we had finished our dinner, and I was sitting alone drinking a class of claret before going out again, Mrs Pearson came in and told me that little Gerard Weir wanted to see me.  I asked her to show him in; and the little fellow entered, looking very shy, and clinging first to the door and then to the wall.

“Come, my dear boy,” I said, “and sit down by me.”

He came directly and stood before me.

“Would you like a little wine and water?” I said; for unhappily there was no dessert, Mrs Pearson knowing that I never eat such things.

“No, thank you, sir; I never tasted wine.”

“I did not press him to take it.

“Please, sir,” he went on after a pause, putting his nand in his pocket, “mother gave me some goodies, and I kept them till I saw you come back, and here they are, sir.”

Does any reader doubt what I did or said upon this?