had falsely so placed her, and robbed
her of all legitimate position? What if there was no rank of life to
which she could now properly attach herself?

And then, how had it answered, that plan of his of keeping her all
to himself? He, Dr Thorne, was still a poor man; the gift of saving
money had not been his; he had ever had a comfortable house for her
to live in, and, in spite of Doctors Fillgrave, Century, Rerechild,
and others, had made from his profession an income sufficient for
their joint wants; but he had not done as others do: he had no three
or four thousand pounds in the Three per Cents. on which Mary might
live in some comfort when he should die. Late in life he had insured
his life for eight hundred pounds; and to that, and that only, had
he to trust for Mary's future maintenance. How had it answered,
then, this plan of letting her be unknown to, and undreamed of by,
those who were as near to her on her mother's side as he was on the
father's? On that side, though there had been utter poverty, there
was now absolute wealth.

But when he took her to himself, had he not rescued her from the very
depths of the lowest misery: from the degradation of the workhouse;
from the scorn of honest-born charity-children; from the lowest of
the world's low conditions? Was she not now the apple of his eye, his
one great sovereign comfort--his pride, his happiness, his glory?
Was he to make her over, to make any portion of her over to others,
if, by doing so, she might be able to share the wealth, as well as
the coarse manners and uncouth society of her at present unknown
connexions? He, who had never worshipped wealth on his own behalf;
he, who had scorned the idol of gold, and had ever been teaching her
to scorn it; was he now to show that his philosophy had all been
false as soon as the temptation to do so was put in his way?

But yet, what man would marry this bastard child, without a sixpence,
and bring not only poverty, but ill blood also on his own children?
It might be very well for him, Dr Thorne; for him whose career was
made, whose name, at any rate, was his own; for him who had a fixed
standing-ground in the world; it might be well for him to indulge in
large views of a philosophy antagonistic to the world's practice; but
had he a right to do it for his niece? What man would marry a girl
so placed? For those among whom she might have legitimately found
a level, education had now utterly unfitted her. And the