Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope [an ebook reader .TXT] 📗

said, had more stubbornness of will than his father; and so, before the fortnight was over, the squire had been talked over, and promised to attend at the doctor’s bidding.

“I suppose you had better take the Hazlehurst farm,” said he to his son, with a sigh. “It joins the park and the home-fields, and I will give you up them also. God knows, I don’t care about farming any more⁠—or about anything else either.”

“Don’t say that, father.”

“Well, well! But, Frank, where will you live? The old house is big enough for us all. But how would Mary get on with your mother?”

At the end of his fortnight, true to his time, the doctor returned to the village. He was a bad correspondent; and though he had written some short notes to Mary, he had said no word to her about his business. It was late in the evening when he got home, and it was understood by Frank and the squire that they were to be with him on the following morning. Not a word had been said to Lady Arabella on the subject.

It was late in the evening when he got home, and Mary waited for him with a heart almost sick with expectation. As soon as the fly had stopped at the little gate she heard his voice, and heard at once that it was quick, joyful, and telling much of inward satisfaction. He had a good-natured word for Janet, and called Thomas an old blunder-head in a manner that made Bridget laugh outright.

“He’ll have his nose put out of joint some day; won’t he?” said the doctor. Bridget blushed and laughed again, and made a sign to Thomas that he had better look to his face.

Mary was in his arms before he was yet within the door. “My darling,” said he, tenderly kissing her. “You are my own darling yet awhile.”

“Of course I am. Am I not always to be so?”

“Well, well; let me have some tea, at any rate, for I’m in a fever of thirst. They may call that tea at the Junction if they will; but if China were sunk under the sea it would make no difference to them.”

Dr. Thorne always was in a fever of thirst when he got home from the railway, and always made complaint as to the tea at the Junction. Mary went about her usual work with almost more than her usual alacrity, and so they were soon seated in the drawing-room together.

She soon found that his manner was more than ordinarily kind to her; and there was moreover something about him which seemed to make him sparkle with contentment, but he said no word about Frank, nor did he make any allusion to the business which had taken him up to town.

“Have you got through all your work?” she said to him once.

“Yes, yes; I think all.”

“And thoroughly?”

“Yes; thoroughly, I think. But I am very tired, and so are you too, darling, with waiting for me.”

“Oh, no, I am not,” said she, as she went on continually filling his cup; “but I am so happy to have you home again. You have been away so much lately.”

“Ah, yes; well I suppose I shall not go away any more now. It will be somebody else’s turn now.”

“Uncle, I think you’re going to take up writing mystery romances, like Mrs. Radcliffe’s.”

“Yes; and I’ll begin tomorrow, certainly with⁠—But, Mary, I will not say another word tonight. Give me a kiss, dearest, and I’ll go.”

Mary did kiss him, and he did go. But as she was still lingering in the room, putting away a book, or a reel of thread, and then sitting down to think what the morrow would bring forth, the doctor again came into the room in his dressing-gown, and with the slippers on.

“What, not gone yet?” said he.

“No, not yet; I’m going now.”

“You and I, Mary, have always affected a good deal of indifference as to money, and all that sort of thing.”

“I won’t acknowledge that it has been an affectation at all,” she answered.

“Perhaps not; but we have often expressed it, have we not?”

“I suppose, uncle, you think that we are like the fox that lost his tail, or rather some unfortunate fox that might be born without one.”

“I wonder how we should either of us bear it if we found ourselves suddenly rich. It would be a great temptation⁠—a sore temptation. I fear, Mary, that when poor people talk disdainfully of money, they often are like your fox, born without a tail. If nature suddenly should give that beast a tail, would he not be prouder of it than all the other foxes in the wood?”

“Well, I suppose he would. That’s the very meaning of the story. But how moral you’ve become all of a sudden at twelve o’clock at night! Instead of being Mrs. Radcliffe, I shall think you’re Mr. Aesop.”

He took up the article which he had come to seek, and kissing her again on the forehead, went away to his bedroom without further speech. “What can he mean by all this about money?” said Mary to herself. “It cannot be that by Sir Louis’s death he will get any of all this property;” and then she began to bethink herself whether, after all, she would wish him to be a rich man. “If he were very rich, he might do something to assist Frank; and then⁠—”

There never was a fox yet without a tail who would not be delighted to find himself suddenly possessed of that appendage. Never; let the untailed fox have been ever so sincere in his advice to his friends! We are all of us, the good and the bad, looking for tails⁠—for one tail, or for more than one; we do so too often by ways that are mean enough: but perhaps there is no tail-seeker more mean, more sneakingly mean than he who looks out to adorn his bare back with a tail by marriage.

The doctor was up very early the