‘You may say what you please, Scatcherd:  I of course cannot stop you.’

’But I don’t know how you’ll reconcile what you are doing with your conscience.  What right can you have to throw away the girl’s chance, now that she has a chance?  What fortune can you give her?’

‘I have done what little I could,’ said Thorne, proudly.

’Well, well, well, well, I never heard such a thing in my life; never.  Mary’s child, my own Mary’s child, and I’m not to see her!  But, Thorne, I tell you what; I will see her.  I’ll go over to her, I’ll go to Greshamsbury, and tell her who I am, and what I can do for her.  I tell you fairly I will.  You shall not keep her away from those who belong to her, and can do her a good turn.  Mary’s daughter; another Mary Scatcherd!  I almost wish she were called Mary Scatcherd.  Is she like her, Thorne?  Come tell me that; is she like her mother.’

‘I do not remember her mother; at least not in health.’

’Not remember her! ah, well.  She was the handsomest girl in Barchester, anyhow.  That was given up to her.  Well, I didn’t think to be talking of her again.  Thorne, you cannot but expect that I shall go over and see Mary’s child?’

‘Now, Scatcherd, look here,’ and the doctor, coming away from the window, where he had been standing, sat himself down by the bedside, ‘you must not come over to Greshamsbury.’

‘Oh! but I shall.’

’Listen to me, Scatcherd.  I do not want to praise myself in any way; but when that girl was an infant, six months old, she was like to be a thorough obstacle to her mother’s fortune in life.  Tomlinson was willing to marry your sister, but he would not marry the child too.  Then I took the baby, and I promised her mother that I would be to her as a father.  I have kept my word as fairly as I have been able.  She has sat at my hearth, and drunk of my cup, and been to me as my own child.  After that, I have the right to judge what is best for her.  Her life is not like your life, and her ways are not as your ways—­’

‘Ah, that is just it; we are too vulgar for her.’

‘You may take it as you will,’ said the doctor, who was too much in earnest to be in the least afraid of offending his companion.  ’I have not said so; but I do say that you and she are unlike in the way of living.’

‘She wouldn’t like an uncle with a brandy bottle under his head, eh?’

’You could not see her without letting her know what is the connexion between you; of that I wish to keep her in ignorance.’

’I never knew any one yet who is ashamed of a rich connexion.  How do you mean to get a husband for her, eh?’

‘I have told you of her existence,’ continued the doctor, not appearing to notice what the baronet had last said, ’because I found it necessary that you should know the fact of your sister having left a child behind her; you would otherwise have made a will different from that intended, and there might have been a lawsuit, and mischief, and misery when we are gone.  You must perceive that I have done this in honesty to you; and you yourself are too honest to repay me by taking advantage of this knowledge to make me unhappy.’