ond this he had
touched very little on the cares of housekeeping. A slop-bowl full of
strong tea, together with bread, and butter, and eggs, was produced
for him in the morning, and he expected that at whatever hour he
might arrive in the evening, some food should be presented to him
wherewith to satisfy the cravings of nature; if, in addition to this,
he had another slop-bowl of tea in the evening, he got all that he
ever required, or all, at least, that he ever demanded.

But when Mary came, or rather, when she was about to come, things
were altogether changed at the doctor's. People had hitherto
wondered--and especially Mrs Umbleby--how a gentleman like Dr Thorne
could continue to live in so slovenly a manner; and how people again
wondered, and again especially Mrs Umbleby, how the doctor could
possibly think it necessary to put such a lot of furniture into a
house because a little chit of a girl of twelve years of age was
coming to live with him.

Mrs Umbleby had great scope for her wonder. The doctor made a
thorough revolution in his household, and furnished his house from
the ground to the roof completely. He painted--for the first time
since the commencement of his tenancy--he papered, he carpeted, and
curtained, and mirrored, and linened, and blanketed, as though a Mrs
Thorne with a good fortune were coming home to-morrow; and all for a
girl of twelve years old. "And how," said Mrs Umbleby, to her friend
Miss Gushing, "how did he find out what to buy?" as though the doctor
had been brought up like a wild beast, ignorant of the nature of
tables and chairs, and with no more developed ideas of drawing-room
drapery than an hippopotamus.

To the utter amazement of Mrs Umbleby and Miss Gushing, the doctor
did it all very well. He said nothing about it to any one--he never
did say much about such things--but he furnished his house well and
discreetly; and when Mary Thorne came home from her school at Bath,
to which she had been taken some six years previously, she found
herself called upon to be the presiding genius of a perfect paradise.

It has been said that the doctor had managed to endear himself to the
new squire before the old squire's death, and that, therefore, the
change at Greshamsbury had had no professional ill effects upon him.
Such was the case at the time; but, nevertheless, all did not go
smoothly in the Greshamsbury medical department. There was six or
seven years' difference in age between Mr Gr