and they drew near the end of Hintock
Lane. It had been decided that they should, at least for a time, take
up their abode in her father's roomy house, one wing of which was quite
at their service, being almost disused by the Melburys. Workmen had
been painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in the
wedded pair's absence; and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer
that there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival,
that not the smallest detail remained undone. To make it all complete a
ground-floor room had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent
outer door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate was screwed--for mere
ornament, such a sign being quite superfluous where everybody knew the
latitude and longitude of his neighbors for miles round.

Melbury and his wife welcomed the twain with affection, and all the
house with deference. They went up to explore their rooms, that opened
from a passage on the left hand of the staircase, the entrance to which
could be shut off on the landing by a door that Melbury had hung for
the purpose. A friendly fire was burning in the grate, although it was
not cold. Fitzpiers said it was too soon for any sort of meal, they
only having dined shortly before leaving Sherton-Abbas. He would walk
across to his old lodging, to learn how his locum tenens had got on in
his absence.

In leaving Melbury's door he looked back at the house. There was
economy in living under that roof, and economy was desirable, but in
some way he was dissatisfied with the arrangement; it immersed him so
deeply in son-in-lawship to Melbury. He went on to his former
residence. His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers fell into conversation
with his former landlady.

"Well, Mrs. Cox, what's the best news?" he asked of her, with cheery
weariness.

She was a little soured at losing by his marriage so profitable a
tenant as the surgeon had proved to be duling his residence under her
roof; and the more so in there being hardly the remotest chance of her
getting such another settler in the Hintock solitudes. "'Tis what I
don't wish to repeat, sir; least of all to you," she mumbled.

"Never mind me, Mrs. Cox; go ahead."

"It is what people say about your hasty marrying, Dr. Fitzpiers.
Whereas they won't believe you know such clever doctrines in physic as
they once supposed of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr. Melbury's
family, which is only Hintock-born, such as me."

"They