efore?" said she, somewhat
crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy
Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I
want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't."

"Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down."

"What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's
gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you
call it. Eh, deary; I'll be going after him before long, and it will
be no matter then."

"We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that's sure
enough."

"Eh, dear, that's true surely. It's only a span long, as Parson Oriel
tells us, when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it's a hard
thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can't have their span,
as he calls it, out together. Well I must only put up with it, I
suppose, as others does. Now, you're not going, doctor? You'll stop
and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah
has from the Alderney cow. Do'ey now, doctor." But the doctor had
his letter to write, and would not allow himself to be tempted even
by the promise of Hannah's cream. So he went his way, angering Lady
Scatcherd by his departure as he had before angered the squire, and
thinking as he went which was most unreasonable in her wretchedness,
his friend Lady Arabella or his friend Lady Scatcherd. The former
was always complaining of an existing husband who never refused her
any moderate request; and the other passed her days in murmuring at
the loss of a dead husband, who in his life had ever been to her
imperious and harsh, and had sometimes been cruel and unjust.

The doctor had his letter to write, but even yet he had not quite
made up his mind what he would put into it; indeed, he had not
hitherto resolved to whom it should be written. Looking at the matter
as he had endeavoured to look at it, his niece, Mrs. Gresham, would
be his correspondent; but if he brought himself to take this jump
in the dark, in that case he would address himself direct to Miss
Dunstable. He walked home, not by the straightest road, but taking
a considerable curve, round by narrow lanes, and through thick
flower-laden hedges,--very thoughtful. He was told that she wished to
marry him; and was he to think only of himself? And as to that pride
of his about money, was it in truth a hearty, manly feeling; or was
it a false pride, of which it behoved him to be ashamed as it did of
many cognat