Mary. But I think you are unkind in
saying such things to me."

"Into whatever heaven I am admitted, I will go only on this
understanding: that I am to be as good an angel as any of those
around me."

"But, Mary dear, why do you say this to me?"

"Because--because--because--ah me! Why, indeed, but because I have no
one else to say it to. Certainly not because you have deserved it."

"It seems as though you were finding fault with me."

"And so I am; how can I do other than find fault? How can I help
being sore? Trichy, you hardly realise my position; you hardly see
how I am treated; how I am forced to allow myself to be treated
without a sign of complaint. You don't see it all. If you did, you
would not wonder that I should be sore."

Beatrice did not quite see it all; but she saw enough of it to know
that Mary was to be pitied; so, instead of scolding her friend
for being cross, she threw her arms round her and kissed her
affectionately.

But the doctor all this time suffered much more than his niece did.
He could not complain out loudly; he could not aver that his pet lamb
had been ill treated; he could not even have the pleasure of openly
quarrelling with Lady Arabella; but not the less did he feel it to
be most cruel that Mary should have to live before the world as an
outcast, because it had pleased Frank Gresham to fall in love with
her.

But his bitterness was not chiefly against Frank. That Frank had been
very foolish he could not but acknowledge; but it was a kind of folly
for which the doctor was able to find excuse. For Lady Arabella's
cold propriety he could find no excuse.

With the squire he had spoken no word on the subject up to this
period of which we are now writing. With her ladyship he had never
spoken on it since that day when she had told him that Mary was
to come no more to Greshamsbury. He never now dined or spent his
evenings at Greshamsbury, and seldom was to be seen at the house,
except when called in professionally. The squire, indeed, he
frequently met; but he either did so in the village, or out on
horseback, or at his own house.

When the doctor first heard that Sir Roger had lost his seat, and had
returned to Boxall Hill, he resolved to go over and see him. But the
visit was postponed from day to day, as visits are postponed which
may be made any day, and he did not in fact go till he was summoned
there somewhat peremptorily. A message was brought to him one evening
to say