ality; he did not absolutely tell the Earl de Courcy in
words, that the privilege of dining at Courcy Castle was to him no
greater than the privilege of dining at Courcy Parsonage; but there
was that in his manner that told it. The feeling in itself was
perhaps good, and was certainly much justified by the manner in which
he bore himself to those below him in rank; but there was folly in
the resolution to run counter to the world's recognised rules on such
matters; and much absurdity in his mode of doing so, seeing that at
heart he was a thorough Conservative. It is hardly too much to say
that he naturally hated a lord at first sight; but, nevertheless, he
would have expended his means, his blood, and spirit, in fighting for
the upper house of Parliament.

Such a disposition, until it was thoroughly understood, did not tend
to ingratiate him with the wives of the country gentlemen among whom
he had to look for practice. And then, also, there was not much in
his individual manner to recommend him to the favour of ladies. He
was brusque, authoritative, given to contradiction, rough though
never dirty in his personal belongings, and inclined to indulge
in a sort of quiet raillery, which sometimes was not thoroughly
understood. People did not always know whether he was laughing
at them or with them; and some people were, perhaps, inclined to
think that a doctor should not laugh at all when called in to act
doctorially.

When he was known, indeed, when the core of the fruit had been
reached, when the huge proportions of that loving trusting heart had
been learned, and understood, and appreciated, when that honesty had
been recognised, that manly, and almost womanly tenderness had been
felt, then, indeed, the doctor was acknowledged to be adequate in his
profession. To trifling ailments he was too often brusque. Seeing
that he accepted money for the cure of such, he should, we may say,
have cured them without an offensive manner. So far he is without
defence. But to real suffering no one found him brusque; no patient
lying painfully on a bed of sickness ever thought him rough.

Another misfortune was, that he was a bachelor. Ladies think, and
I, for one, think that ladies are quite right in so thinking, that
doctors should be married men. All the world feels that a man when
married acquires some of the attributes of an old woman--he becomes,
to a certain extent, a motherly sort of being; he acquires a
conversance with wom