's house. If I might have it, and
keep my own hours and habits, I think it would conduce to our working
better together. I am afraid I kept you in needless distress about
him, but I wanted to judge for myself of the necessity, and to think
over the resignation of that quest. I must commit it to Brown. I hope
it is not too great a risk; but it can't be helped. It is a matter of
course that I should come home now the helper is gone; I always knew it
would come to that. Manage it as quietly as you can. I must go to
Paris for a fortnight, to bring home my things, and by that time my
father had better get me appointed to the hospital.

'Yours ever,
'TH. MAY.'

Ethel was not so much surprised as her father, who thought she must
have been working upon Tom's feelings; but this she disavowed, except
that it had been impossible not to growl at patients sending at
unreasonable hours. Then he hoped that Fleet had not been
disappointing the lad; but this notion was nullified by a remonstrance
from the knight, on the impolicy of burying such talents for the sake
of present help; and even proposing to send a promising young man in
Tom's stead. 'Not too good for poor Stoneborough,' said Dr. May,
smiling. 'No, no, I'm not so decrepit as that, whatever he and Tom may
have thought me; I fancy I could tire out both of them. I can't have
the poor boy giving up all his prospects for my sake, Ethel. I never
looked for it, and I shall write and tell him so! Mind, Ethel, I shall
write, not you! I know you would only stroke him down, and bring him
home to regret it. No, no, I won't always be treated like Karl, in
"Debit and Credit", who the old giant thought could neither write nor
be written to, because his finger was off.'

And Dr. May's letter was the first which this son had ever had from him.

'My Dear Tom,

'I feel your kind intentions to the heart; it is like all the rest of
your dear mother's children; but the young ought not to be sacrificed
to the old, and I won't have it done. The whole tone of practice has
altered since my time, and I do not want to bind you down to the
routine. I had left off thinking of it since I knew of your distaste.
I have some years of work in me yet, that will see out most of my old
patients; and for the rest, Wright is a great advance on poor Ward, and
I will leave more to him as I grow older. I mean to see you a great
man yet, and I think you will be the greater and happier for the