m. And there was, moreover, about him an occasional dash
of humour, without which Mrs Dale would hardly have regarded him
with that thorough liking which she had for him. But it was a quiet
humour, apt to show itself when he had but one friend with him,
rather than in general society. Crosbie, on the other hand, would
be much more bright among a dozen, than he could with a single
companion. Bernard Dale was never bright; and as for Johnny Eames--;
but in this matter of brightness, Johnny Eames had not yet shown to
the world what his character might be.

It was now two years since Crofts had been called upon for medical
advice on behalf of his friend Mrs Dale. She had then been ill for
a long period--some two or three months, and Dr Crofts had been
frequent in his visits at Allington. At that time he became very
intimate with Mrs Dale's daughters, and especially so with the
eldest. Young unmarried doctors ought perhaps to be excluded from
homes in which there are young ladies. I know, at any rate, that many
sage matrons hold very strongly to that opinion, thinking, no doubt,
that doctors ought to get themselves married before they venture
to begin working for a living. Mrs Dale, perhaps, regarded her own
girls as still merely children, for Bell, the elder, was then hardly
eighteen; or perhaps she held imprudent and heterodox opinions on
this subject; or it may be that she selfishly preferred Dr Crofts,
with all the danger to her children, to Dr Gruffen, with all the
danger to herself. But the result was that the young doctor one day
informed himself, as he was riding back to Guestwick, that much of
his happiness in this world would depend on his being able to marry
Mrs Dale's eldest daughter. At that time his total income amounted
to little more than two hundred a year, and he had resolved within
his own mind that Dr Gruffen was esteemed as much the better doctor
by the general public opinion of Guestwick, and that Dr Gruffen's
sandy-haired assistant would even have a better chance of success in
the town than himself, should it ever come to pass that the doctor
was esteemed too old for personal practice. Crofts had no fortune of
his own, and he was aware that Miss Dale had none. Then, under those
circumstances, what was he to do?

It is not necessary that we should inquire at any great length into
those love passages of the doctor's life which took place three years
before the commencement of this narrative. He made no