nd rapid, and he expired without again seeing his eldest son. Mark
arrived at the house of mourning just as they were learning to
realize the full change in their position.

The doctor's career had been on the whole successful, but
nevertheless he did not leave behind him as much money as the world
had given him credit for possessing. Who ever does? Dr. Robarts had
educated a large family, had always lived with every comfort, and
had never possessed a shilling but what he had earned himself. A
physician's fees come in, no doubt, with comfortable rapidity as soon
as rich old gentlemen and middle-aged ladies begin to put their faith
in him; but fees run out almost with equal rapidity when a wife and
seven children are treated to everything that the world considers
most desirable. Mark, we have seen, had been educated at Harrow and
Oxford, and it may be said, therefore, that he had received his
patrimony early in life. For Gerald Robarts, the second brother, a
commission had been bought in a crack regiment. He also had been
lucky, having lived and become a captain in the Crimea; and the
purchase-money was lodged for his majority. And John Robarts, the
youngest, was a clerk in the Petty Bag Office, and was already
assistant private secretary to the Lord Petty Bag himself--a place of
considerable trust, if not hitherto of large emolument; and on his
education money had been spent freely, for in these days a young man
cannot get into the Petty Bag Office without knowing at least three
modern languages; and he must be well up in trigonometry too, in
Bible theology, or in one dead language--at his option. And the
doctor had four daughters. The two elder were married, including
that Blanche with whom Lord Lufton was to have fallen in love at the
vicar's wedding. A Devonshire squire had done this in the lord's
place; but on marrying her it was necessary that he should have a few
thousand pounds, two or three perhaps, and the old doctor had managed
that they should be forthcoming. The elder also had not been sent
away from the paternal mansion quite empty-handed. There were,
therefore, at the time of the doctor's death two children left at
home, of whom one only, Lucy, the younger, will come much across us
in the course of our story.

Mark stayed for ten days at Exeter, he and the Devonshire squire
having been named as executors in the will. In this document it was
explained that the doctor trusted that provision had been made f