Tom and his portmanteau reached Pincote together a day or two after his last conversation with the Squire. Mrs. McDermott understood that Tom had been invited to spend a week there in order to assist her brother with his books and farm accounts. It seemed to her a very injudicious thing to do, but she did not say much about it. In truth, she was rather pleased than otherwise to have Tom there. It was dreadfully monotonous to have to spend one evening after another with no company save that of her brother and Jane. She was tired of her audience, and her audience were tired of her. Mr. Bristow, as she knew already, could talk well, was lively company, and, above all things; was an excellent listener. She had done her duty by her brother in warning him of what was going on between Mr. Bristow and her niece; if, after that, the Squire chose to let the two young people come together, it was not her place to dispute his right to do so.

Tom was very attentive to her at dinner that day. Of Jane he took no notice beyond what the occasion absolutely demanded. Mrs. McDermott was agreeably surprised. "He has come to his senses at last, as I thought he would," she said to herself. "Grown tired of Jane\'s society, and no wonder. There\'s nothing in her."

As soon as the cloth was removed, Jane excused herself on the score of a headache, and left the room. The Squire got into an easy-chair and settled himself down for a post-prandial nap. Tom moved his chair a little nearer that of the widow.

"I have grieved to see you looking so far from well, Mrs. McDermott," he said, as he poured himself out another glass of wine. "My father was a doctor, and I suppose I caught the habit from him of reading the signs of health or sickness in people\'s faces."

Mrs. McDermott was visibly discomposed. She was a great coward with regard to her health, and Tom knew it.

"Yes," she said, "I have not been well for some time past. But I was not aware that the traces of my indisposition were so plainly visible to others."

"They are visible to me because, as I tell you, I am half a doctor both by birth and bringing up. You seem to me, Mrs. McDermott, pardon me for saying so--to have been fading--to have been going backward, as it were, almost from the day of your arrival at Pincote."

Mrs. McDermott coughed and moved uneasily on her chair. "I have been a confirmed invalid for years," she said, querulously, "and yet no one will believe me when, I tell them so."

"I can very readily believe it," said Tom, gravely. Then he lapsed into an ominous silence.

"I--I did not know that I was looking any worse now than when I first came to Pincote," she said at last.

"You seem to me to be much older-looking, much more careworn, with lines making their appearance round your eyes and mouth, such as I never noticed before. So, at least, it strikes me, but I may be, and I dare say I am, quite wrong."

The widow seemed at a loss what to say. Tom\'s words had evidently rendered her very uneasy. "Then what would you advise me to do?" she said, after a time. "If you can detect the disease so readily, you should have no difficulty in specifying the remedy."

"Ah, now I am afraid you are getting beyond my depth," said Tom, with a smile. "I am little more than a theorizer, you know; but I should have no hesitation in saying that your disorder is connected with the mind."

"Gracious me, Mr. Bristow!"

"Yes, Mrs. McDermott, my opinion is that you are suffering from an undue development of brain power."

The widow looked puzzled. "I was always considered rather intellectual," she said, with a glance at her brother. But the Squire still slept.

"You are very intellectual, madam; and that is just where the evil lies."

"Excuse me, but I fail to follow you."

"You are gifted with a very large and a very powerful brain," said Tom, with the utmost gravity. The Squire snorted suddenly in his sleep. The widow held up a warning finger. There was silence in the room till the Squire\'s gentle long-drawn snores announced that he was again happily fast asleep.

"Very few of us are so specially gifted," resumed Tom. "But every special gift necessitates a special obligation in return. You, with your massive brain, must find that brain plenty of work to do--a sufficiency of congenial employment--otherwise it will inevitably turn upon itself, grow morbid and hypochondriacal, and slowly but surely deteriorate, till it ends by becoming--what I hardly like to say."

"Really, Mr. Bristow, this conversation is to me most interesting," said the widow. "Your views are thoroughly original, but, at the same time, I feel that they are perfectly correct."

"The sphere of your intellectual activity is far too narrow and confined," resumed Tom; "your brain has not sufficient pabulum to keep it in a state of healthy activity. You want to mix more with the world--to mix more with clever people like yourself. It was never intended by nature that you should lose yourself among the narrow coteries of provincial life: the metropolis claims you: the world at large claims you. A conversationalist so brilliant, so incisive, with such an exhaustless fund of new ideas, can only hope to find her equals among the best circles of London or Parisian society."

"How thoroughly you appreciate me, Mr. Bristow!" said the widow, all in a flutter of gratified vanity, as she edged her chair still closer to Tom. "It is as you say. I feel that I am lost here--that I am altogether out of my element. I stay here more as a matter of duty--of principle--than of anything else. Not that it is any gratification to me, as you may well imagine, to be buried alive in this dull hole. But my brother is getting old and infirm--breaking fast, I\'m afraid, poor man," here the Squire gave a louder snore than common; "while Jane is little more than a foolish girl. They both need the guidance of a kind but firm hand. The interests of both demand a clear brain to look after them."

"My dear madam, I agree with you in toto. Your Spartan views with regard to the duties of everyday life are mine exactly. But we must not forget that we have still another duty--that of carefully preserving our health, especially when our lives are invaluable to the epoch in which we live. You, my dear madam, are killing yourself by inches."

"Oh, Mr. Bristow, not quite so bad as that, I hope!"

"What I say, I say advisedly. I think that, without difficulty, I can specify a few symptoms of the cerebral disorder to which you are a victim. You will bear me out if what I say is correct."

"Yes, yes; please go on."

"You are a sufferer from sleeplessness to a certain extent. The body would fain rest, being tired and worn out, but the active brain will not allow it to do so. Am I right, Mrs. McDermott?"

"I cannot dispute the accuracy of what you say."

"Your nature being large and eminently sympathetic, but not finding sufficient vent for itself in the narrow circle to which it is condemned, busies itself, for lack of other aliment, with the concerns and daily doings of those around it, giving them the benefit of its vast experience and intuitive good sense; but being met sometimes with coldness instead of sympathy, it collapses, falls back upon itself, and becomes morbid for want of proper intellectual companionship. May I hope that you follow me?"

"Yes--yes, perfectly," said the widow, but looking somewhat mystified, notwithstanding.

"The brain thus thrown back upon itself engenders an irritability of t............