t--led and bigoted; and Dr.
May was the despot to whom all bowed down.

This was an opinion Henry would hardly have originated: it was the
shaft of an abler man than he--no other than Harvey Anderson, who had
lately become known to the world by a book proving King John to have
been the most enlightened and patriotic of English sovereigns, enduring
the Interdict on a pure principle of national independence, and
devising Magna Charta from his own generous brain--in fact, presenting
a magnificent and misunderstood anticipation of the most advanced
theories of the nineteenth century. The book had made so much noise in
the world, that the author had been induced to quit his college
tutorship, and become editor of a popular magazine. He lived in
London, but often came down to spend Sunday with his mother, and had
begun to be looked on as rather the lion of the place. Henry took in
his magazine, and courted his notice, often bringing him into Averil's
way that she might hear her heroes treated with irony more effectual
than home-made satire; but Ave was staunch. She hated the sight of Mr.
Anderson; never cut the leaves of his magazine; and if driven to sing
to him, took as little pains as her musical nature would let her do.
But the very strength of her dislike gave it an air of prejudice, and
it was set down less to principle than to party spirit and May
influence.

There was another cause for Henry's being soured. He was not of the
nature to be filial with Dr. May; and therefore gratitude oppressed,
and patronage embittered him. The first months of warm feeling at an
end, the old spirit of independence revived, and he avoided consulting
the physician as much as possible. More than once his management of a
case was not approved by Dr. May; and the strong and hasty language,
and the sharp reproofs that ensued, were not taken as the signs of the
warm heart and friendly interest, but as the greatest
offences--sullenly, but not the less bitterly endured.

Moreover, one of the Whitford surgeons had been called in by a few of
the out-lying families who had hitherto been patients of the Wards; and
worse than all, Mrs. Rivers took her child up to London for three days
in November, and it became known--through a chain of tongues--that it
was for the enlargement of tonsils, on which Mr. Ward had operated a
year before.

'Old May was playing him false!' was Henry's cry. 'His professions
were humbug. He would endure no one