portions.

The doctor did, at last, make up his mind to go. Whichever way he
determined, he found that he was not contented with himself. He did
not like to trust Sir Louis by himself, and he did not like to show
that he was angry. Still less did he like the idea of breaking bread
in Lady Arabella's house till some amends had been made to Mary. But
his heart would not allow him to refuse the petition contained in
the squire's postscript, and the matter ended in his accepting the
invitation.

This visit of his ward's was, in every way, pernicious to the doctor.
He could not go about his business, fearing to leave such a man alone
with Mary. On the afternoon of the second day, she escaped to the
parsonage for an hour or so, and then walked away among the lanes,
calling on some of her old friends among the farmers' wives. But even
then, the doctor was afraid to leave Sir Louis. What could such a
man do, left alone in a village like Greshamsbury? So he stayed at
home, and the two together went over their accounts. The baronet was
particular about his accounts, and said a good deal as to having
Finnie over to Greshamsbury. To this, however, Dr Thorne positively
refused his consent.

The evening passed off better than the preceding one; at least the
early part of it. Sir Louis did not get tipsy; he came up to tea, and
Mary, who did not feel so keenly on the subject as her uncle, almost
wished that he had done so. At ten o'clock he went to bed.

But after that new troubles came on. The doctor had gone downstairs
into his study to make up some of the time which he had lost, and
had just seated himself at his desk, when Janet, without announcing
herself, burst into the room; and Bridget, dissolved in hysterical
tears, with her apron to her eyes, appeared behind the senior
domestic.

"Please, sir," said Janet, driven by excitement much beyond her
usual pace of speaking, and becoming unintentionally a little less
respectful than usual, "please sir, that 'ere young man must go out
of this here house; or else no respectable young 'ooman can't stop
here; no, indeed, sir; and we be sorry to trouble you, Dr Thorne; so
we be."

"What young man? Sir Louis?" asked the doctor.

"Oh, no! he abides mostly in bed, and don't do nothing amiss; least
way not to us. 'Tan't him, sir; but his man."

"Man!" sobbed Bridget from behind. "He an't no man, nor nothing
like a man. If Tummas had been here, he wouldn't have dared; so he
wouldn't