en's ways and women's wants, and loses the wilder
and offensive sparks of his virility. It must be easier to talk to
such a one about Matilda's stomach, and the growing pains in Fanny's
legs, than to a young bachelor. This impediment also stood much in Dr
Thorne's way during his first years at Greshamsbury.

But his wants were not at first great; and though his ambition was
perhaps high, it was not of an impatient nature. The world was his
oyster; but, circumstanced as he was, he knew that it was not for him
to open it with his lancet all at once. He had bread to earn, which
he must earn wearily; he had a character to make, which must come
slowly; it satisfied his soul that, in addition to his immortal
hopes, he had a possible future in this world to which he could look
forward with clear eyes, and advance with a heart that would know no
fainting.

On his first arrival at Greshamsbury he had been put by the squire
into a house, which he still occupied when that squire's grandson
came of age. There were two decent, commodious, private houses in the
village--always excepting the rectory, which stood grandly in its own
grounds, and, therefore, was considered as ranking above the village
residences--of these two Dr Thorne had the smaller. They stood
exactly at the angle before described, on the outer side of it, and
at right angles to each other. They both possessed good stables and
ample gardens; and it may be as well to specify, that Mr Umbleby, the
agent and lawyer to the estate, occupied the larger one.

Here Dr Thorne lived for eleven or twelve years, all alone; and
then for ten or eleven more with his niece, Mary Thorne. Mary was
thirteen when she came to take up permanent abode as mistress of the
establishment--or, at any rate, to act as the only mistress which the
establishment possessed. This advent greatly changed the tenor of
the doctor's ways. He had been before pure bachelor; not a room in
his house had been comfortably furnished; he at first commenced in a
makeshift sort of way, because he had not at his command the means of
commencing otherwise; and he had gone on in the same fashion, because
the exact time had never come at which it was imperative in him to
set his house in order. He had had no fixed hour for his meals, no
fixed place for his books, no fixed wardrobe for his clothes. He had
a few bottles of good wine in his cellar, and occasionally asked a
brother bachelor to take a chop with him; but bey