orld in London, that world to which Miss
Dunstable was accustomed, and which was apparently becoming dearer to
her day by day, would not have regarded the doctor as a man likely to
become the object of a lady's passion. But nevertheless the idea did
occur to Mrs. Gresham. She had been brought up at the elbow of this
country practitioner; she had lived with him as though she had been
his daughter; she had been for years the ministering angel of his
household; and, till her heart had opened to the natural love of
womanhood, all her closest sympathies had been with him. In her eyes
the doctor was all but perfect; and it did not seem to her to be out
of the question that Miss Dunstable should have fallen in love with
her uncle.

Miss Dunstable once said to Mrs. Harold Smith that it was possible
that she might marry, the only condition then expressed being this,
that the man elected should be one who was quite indifferent as to
money. Mrs. Harold Smith, who, by her friends, was presumed to know
the world with tolerable accuracy, had replied that such a man Miss
Dunstable would never find in this world. All this had passed in that
half-comic vein of banter which Miss Dunstable so commonly used when
conversing with such friends as Mrs. Harold Smith; but she had spoken
words of the same import more than once to Mrs. Gresham; and Mrs.
Gresham, putting two and two together as women do, had made four
of the little sum; and as the final result of the calculation,
determined that Miss Dunstable would marry Dr. Thorne if Dr. Thorne
would ask her. And then Mrs. Gresham began to bethink herself of two
other questions. Would it be well that her uncle should marry Miss
Dunstable? and if so, would it be possible to induce him to make such
a proposition? After the consideration of many pros and cons, and the
balancing of very various arguments, Mrs. Gresham thought that the
arrangement on the whole might not be a bad one. For Miss Dunstable
she herself had a sincere affection, which was shared by her husband.
She had often grieved at the sacrifices Miss Dunstable made to
the world, thinking that her friend was falling into vanity,
indifference, and an ill mode of life; but such a marriage as this
would probably cure all that. And then as to Dr. Thorne himself, to
whose benefit were of course applied Mrs. Gresham's most earnest
thoughts in this matter, she could not but think that he would be
happier married than he was single. In point of