ied great things for me.

So passed my first winter in London.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.

THE TABLES TURNED.

A dreary season was that first winter in London.

It happened quite naturally that here, as in Guernsey, my share of the
practice fell among the lower and least important class of patients.
Jack Senior had been on the field some years sooner, and he was
London-born and London-bred. All the surroundings of his life fitted him
without a wrinkle. He was at home everywhere, and would have counted the
pulse of a duchess with as little emotion as that of a dairy-maid. On
the other hand, I could not accommodate myself altogether to haughty and
aristocratic strangers--though I am somewhat ante-dating later
experiences, for during the winter our fashionable clients were all out
of town, and our time comparatively unoccupied. To be at ease anywhere,
it was, at that time, essential to me to know something of the people
with whom I was associating--an insular trait, common to all those who
are brought up in a contracted and isolated circle.

Besides this rustic embarrassment which hung like a clog about me
out-of-doors, within-doors I missed wofully the dainty feminine ways I
had been used to. There was a trusty female servant, half cook, half
house-keeper, who lived in the front-kitchen and superintended our
household; but she was not at all the angel in the house whom I needed.
It was a well-appointed, handsome dwelling, but it was terribly gloomy.
The heavy, substantial leather chairs always remained undisturbed in
level rows against the wall, and the crimson cloth upon the table was as
bare as a billiard-table. A thimble lying upon it, or fallen on the
carpet and almost crushed by my careless tread, would have been as
welcome a sight to me as a blade of grass or a spring of water in some
sandy desert. The sound of a light foot and rustling dress, and low,
soft voice, would have been the sweetest music in my ears. If a young
fellow of eight-and-twenty, with an excellent appetite and in good
health, could be said to pine, I was pining for the pretty, fondling
woman's ways which had quite vanished out of my life.

At times my thoughts dwelt upon my semi-engagement to Julia. As soon as
I could dethrone the image of Olivia from its pre-eminence in my heart,
she was willing to welcome me back again--a prodigal suitor, who had
spent all his living in a far country. We corresponded regularly and
frequently, a