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 look for 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