had boasted to himself that he, at any rate, was a gentleman; and that she, if she were to live in his house, sit at his table, and share his hearth, must be a lady.  He would tell no lie about her; he would not to any one make her out to be aught other or aught better than she was; people would talk about her of course, only let them not talk to him; he conceived of himself—­and the conception was not without due ground—­that should any do so, he had that within him which would silence them.  He would never claim for this little creature—­thus brought into the world without a legitimate position in which to stand—­he would never claim for her any station that would not properly be her own.  He would make for her a station as best he could.  As he might sink or swim, so should she.

So he had resolved; but things had arranged themselves, as they often do, rather than been arranged by him.  During ten or twelve years no one had heard of Mary Thorne; the memory of Henry Thorne and his tragic death had passed away; the knowledge that an infant had been born whose birth was connected with that tragedy, a knowledge never widely spread, had faded down into utter ignorance.  At the end of these twelve years, Dr Thorne had announced, that a young niece, a child of a brother long since dead, was coming to live with him.  As he had contemplated, no one spoke to him; but some people did no doubt talk among themselves.  Whether or not the exact truth was surmised by any, it matters not to say; with absolute exactness, probably not; with great approach to it, probably yes.  By one person, at any rate, no guess whatever was made; no thought relative to Dr Thorne’s niece ever troubled him; no idea that Mary Scatcherd had left a child in England ever occurred to him; and that person was Roger Scatcherd, Mary’s brother.

To one friend, and only one, did the doctor tell the whole truth, and that was to the old squire.  ‘I have told you,’ said the doctor, ’partly that you may know that the child has no right to mix with your children if you think much of such things.  Do you, however, see to this.  I would rather that no one else should be told.’

No one else had been told; and the squire had ‘seen to it,’ by accustoming himself to look at Mary Thorne running about the house with his own children as though she were of the same brood.  Indeed, the squire had always been fond of Mary, had personally noticed her, and, in the affair of Mam’selle Larron, had declared that he would have her placed at once on the bench of magistrates;—­much to the disgust of the Lady Arabella.

And so things had gone on and on, and had not been thought of with much downright thinking; till now, when she was one-and-twenty years of age, his niece came to him, asking as to her position, and inquiring in what rank of life she was to find a husband.

And so the doctor walked, backwards and forwards through the garden, slowly, thinking now with some earnestness what if, after all, he had been wrong about his niece?  What if by endeavouring to place her in the position of a lady, he had falsely so placed her, and robbed her of her legitimate position?  What if there was no rank of life in which she could now properly attach herself?