ess, the Doctor was
never deterred from doing justice to her hospitality. Few were the
dishes that ever escaped him. The demon dyspepsia had not waved its
fell wings over the eighteenth century, and wonderful were the feats
then achieved by a country gentleman with the united aid of a good
digestion and a good conscience.

The servants had retired, and Dr. Masham had taken his last glass
of port, and then he rang a bell on the table, and, I trust my fair
readers will not be frightened from proceeding with this history, a
servant brought him his pipe. The pipe was well stuffed, duly lighted,
and duly puffed; and then, taking it from his mouth, the Doctor spoke.

'And so, my honoured lady, you have got a neighbour at last.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Lady Annabel.

But the claims of the pipe prevented the good Doctor from too quickly
satisfying her natural curiosity. Another puff or two, and he then
continued.

'Yes,' said he, 'the old abbey has at last found a tenant.'

'A tenant, Doctor?'

'Ay! the best tenant in the world: its proprietor.'

'You quite surprise me. When did this occur?'

'They have been there these three days; I have paid them a visit. Mrs.
Cadurcis has come to live at the abbey with the little lord.'

'This is indeed news to us,' said Lady Annabel; 'and what kind of
people are they?'

'You know, my dear madam,' said the Doctor, just touching the ash of
his pipe with his tobacco-stopper of chased silver, 'that the present
lord is a very distant relative of the late one?'

Lady Annabel bowed assent.

'The late lord,' continued the Doctor, 'who was as strange and
wrong-headed a man as ever breathed, though I trust he is in the
kingdom of heaven for all that, left all his property to his unlawful
children, with the exception of this estate entailed on the title, as
all estates should be, 'Tis a fine place, but no great rental. I doubt
whether 'tis more than a clear twelve hundred a-year.'

'And Mrs. Cadurcis?' inquired Lady Annabel.

'Was an heiress,' replied the Doctor, 'and the late Mr. Cadurcis a
spendrift. He was a bad manager, and, worse, a bad husband. Providence
was pleased to summon him suddenly from this mortal scene, but not
before he had dissipated the greater part of his wife's means. Mrs.
Cadurcis, since she was a widow, has lived in strict seclusion with
her little boy, as you may, my dear lady, with your dear little girl.
But I am afraid,' said the Doctor, shaking his head, 'she