''
``Your Excellency will permit the young man
to pay his respects to you before his departure?''
``To what purpose, sir?'' said the General, hastily
and peremptorily; but instantly added, ``You are
right---I should like to see him. Winter shall let
him know the time, and take horses to fetch him
hither. But he must have been out of the Hospital
for a day or two; so the sooner you can set him at
liberty the better. In the meantime, take him to
your own lodgings, Doctor; and do not let him form
any intimacies with the officers, or any others, in
this place, where he may light on another Hillary.''
Had Hartley been as well acquainted as the
reader with the circumstances of young Middlemas's
birth, he might have drawn decisive conclusions
from the behaviour of General Witherington,
while his comrade is the topic of conversation.
But as Mr Gray and Middlemas himself were both
silent on the subject, he knew little of it but from
general report, which his curiosity had never induced
him to scrutinize minutely. Nevertheless,
what he did apprehend interested him so much,
that he resolved upon trying a little experiment,
in which he thought there could be no great harm.
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