its green knolls are not half so nice,
should not be half so precious, as the pulses of your own heart. That
is your own estate, your own, your very own--your own and another's;
whatever may go to the money-lenders, don't send that there. Don't
mortgage that, Mr Gresham."

"No," said Frank, pluckily, as he put his horse into a faster trot,
"I won't mortgage that. They may do what they like with the estate;
but my heart's my own," and so speaking to himself, almost aloud, he
turned a corner of the road rapidly and came at once upon the doctor.

"Hallo, doctor! is that you?" said Frank, rather disgusted.

"What! Frank! I hardly expected to meet you here," said Dr Thorne,
not much better pleased.

They were now not above a mile from Boxall Hill, and the doctor,
therefore, could not but surmise whither Frank was going. They had
repeatedly met since Frank's return from Cambridge, both in the
village and in the doctor's house; but not a word had been said
between them about Mary beyond what the merest courtesy had required.
Not that each did not love the other sufficiently to make a full
confidence between them desirable to both; but neither had had the
courage to speak out.

Nor had either of them the courage to do so now. "Yes," said Frank,
blushing, "I am going to Lady Scatcherd's. Shall I find the ladies at
home?"

"Yes; Lady Scatcherd is there; but Sir Louis is there also--an
invalid: perhaps you would not wish to meet him."

"Oh! I don't mind," said Frank, trying to laugh; "he won't bite, I
suppose?"

The doctor longed in his heart to pray to Frank to return with him;
not to go and make further mischief; not to do that which might cause
a more bitter estrangement between himself and the squire. But he had
not the courage to do it. He could not bring himself to accuse Frank
of being in love with his niece. So after a few more senseless words
on either side, words which each knew to be senseless as he uttered
them, they both rode on their own ways.

And then the doctor silently, and almost unconsciously, made such a
comparison between Louis Scatcherd and Frank Gresham as Hamlet made
between the dead and live king. It was Hyperion to a satyr. Was it
not as impossible that Mary should not love the one, as that she
should love the other? Frank's offer of his affections had at first
probably been but a boyish ebullition of feeling; but if it should
now be, that this had grown into a manly and disinterested love,