You
would have suited him in every way."

"Nonsense, Trichy; I should have suited him in no possible way at
all; nor he me."

"Oh, but you would--exactly. Papa loves you so well."

"And mamma; that would have been so nice."

"Yes; and mamma, too--that is, had you had a fortune," said the
daughter, naively. "She always liked you personally, always."

"Did she?"

"Always. And we all love you so."

"Especially Lady Alexandrina."

"That would not have signified, for Frank cannot endure the de
Courcys himself."

"My dear, it does not matter one straw whom your brother can endure
or not endure just at present. His character is to be formed, and his
tastes, and his heart also."

"Oh, Mary!--his heart."

"Yes, his heart; not the fact of his having a heart. I think he has a
heart; but he himself does not yet understand it."

"Oh, Mary! you do not know him."

Such conversations were not without danger to poor Mary's comfort.
It came soon to be the case that she looked rather for this sort
of sympathy from Beatrice, than for Miss Oriel's pleasant but less
piquant gaiety.

So the days of the doctor's absence were passed, and so also the
first week after his return. During this week it was almost daily
necessary that the squire should be with him. The doctor was now the
legal holder of Sir Roger's property, and, as such, the holder also
of all the mortgages on Mr Gresham's property; and it was natural
that they should be much together. The doctor would not, however,
go up to Greshamsbury on any other than medical business; and it
therefore became necessary that the squire should be a good deal at
the doctor's house.

Then the Lady Arabella became unhappy in her mind. Frank, it was
true, was away at Cambridge, and had been successfully kept out
of Mary's way since the suspicion of danger had fallen upon Lady
Arabella's mind. Frank was away, and Mary was systematically
banished, with due acknowledgement from all the powers in
Greshamsbury. But this was not enough for Lady Arabella as long as
her daughter still habitually consorted with the female culprit, and
as long as her husband consorted with the male culprit. It seemed to
Lady Arabella at this moment as though, in banishing Mary from the
house, she had in effect banished herself from the most intimate of
the Greshamsbury social circles. She magnified in her own mind the
importance of the conferences between the girls, and was not without
some fear that the