peace-soldiering, and in London, would never
suit me, I know."

"Read law; it is a gentlemanly occupation."

"But most uninteresting. Now medicine--"

"Do not let me hear the word; the mere idea is intolerable. My son,
the heir of the Purlings must not condescend so low."

"Considering my own father was a doctor," cried Harold, rather hotly.

"Not a mere doctor. A man of science, of world-wide repute, is not like
a general practitioner, with a red lamp and an apothecary's shop,
where he makes up--"

"Pills?" said Harold, again. He was throwing down the gauntlet indeed.
Mrs. Purling had never known him like this before.

"Leave the room, Harold. I decline to speak to you further, or again,
unless you appear in a more obedient and decorous frame of mind."

That Mrs. Purling was what she was, the chances of her life and her
father were principally to blame. He had begun life as an errand-boy,
and ended it as a millionnaire; but long before he ended he had
forgotten the beginning. He had a sort of notion that he belonged to
one of the old families in the county wherein he had bought wide
estates, and he himself styled his only daughter "the heiress of the
Purlings," as if there had been Purlings back for generations, and he
was the last, not the first, of his race. It was he who had
indoctrinated her with ideas of her own importance; and these same
views had taken so strong a hold of him that he found it quite
impossible to mate his daughter according to his mind. He was
ambitious, as was natural to a _nouveau riche_; wide awake, or he
would not have made so much money. Not one of the crowds of suitors
who came forward was exactly to his taste. He would have preferred a
man of title, but the peers who were not penniless were too proud; and
the best baronet was an aged bankrupt, who had been twice through the
courts, and enjoyed an indifferent name. It was strange that Isabel
did not cut the Gordian knot, and choose for herself; but she was a
dutiful daughter, and little less cautious than her father. In the
midst of it all he was called away on some particular business of his
own--to another world--and Isabel was left alone, past thirty, and
unmarried still.

The _role_ of single blessedness may be charming to a man of means,
but it is often extremely irksome to an heiress in her own right. Miss
Purling was like a pigeon that escapes from the inclosure at a
match--an aim for every gun around. Great ladies took h