"Dear Jock, if you only care, I think we sha'n't want many
punishments. But now I must go to your aunt, for we did behave
horribly ill to her."

Aunt Ellen was kind, and accepted Carey's apology when she found that
Jock had really been punished. Only she said, "You must be firm with
that boy, Caroline, or you will be sorry for it. My boys know that
what I have said is to be done, and they know it is of no use to
disobey. I am happy to say they mind me at a word; but that John of
yours needs a tight hand. The Colonel thinks that the sooner he is
at school the better."

Before Carey had time to get into a fresh scrape, the Colonel was
ringing at the door. He had to confess that Dr. Lucas had said Mrs.
Joe Brownlow was right about Vaughan, and had made it plain that his
offer ought not to be accepted, either in policy, or in that duty
which the Colonel began to perceive towards his brother's patients.
Nor did he think ill of her plan respecting Dr. Drake; and said he
would himself suggest the application which that gentleman was no
doubt withholding from true feeling, for he had been a favourite
pupil of Joe Brownlow, and had been devoted to him. He was sure that
Mrs. Brownlow's good sense and instinct were to be trusted, a dictum
which not a little surprised her brother-in-law, who had never ceased
to think of "poor Joe's fancy" as a mere child, and who forgot that
she was fifteen years older than at her marriage.

He told his wife what Dr. Lucas had said, to which she replied,
"That's just the way. Men know nothing about it."

However, Dr. Drake's offer was sufficiently eligible to be accepted.