had been just as enthusiastic about it as I had been. She
hated town life, I knew; and even if the wife of a country doctor is
allowed few diversions, she can always form a select little
tea-and-tennis circle of friends.

The fashion nowadays is for girls of middle-class to regard the
prospect of becoming a country doctor's wife with considerable
hesitation--"too slow," they term it; and declare that to live in the
country and drive in a governess-cart is synonymous with being buried.
Many girls marry just as servants change their places--in order "to
better themselves;" and alas! that parents encourage this latter-day
craze for artificiality and glitter of town life that so often
fascinates and spoils a bride ere the honeymoon is over. The majority
of girls to-day are not content to marry the hard-working professional
man whose lot is cast in the country, but prefer to marry a man in
town, so that they may take part in the pleasures of theatres, variety
and otherwise, suppers at restaurants, and the thousand and one
attractions provided for the reveller in London. They have obtained
their knowledge of "life" from the society papers, and they see no
reason why they should not taste of those pleasures enjoyed by their
wealthier sisters, whose goings and comings are so carefully
chronicled. The majority of girls have a desire to shine beyond their
own sphere; and the attempt, alas! is accountable for very many of the
unhappy marriages. This may sound prosy, I know, but the reader will
forgive when he reflects upon the cases in point which arise to his
memory--cases of personal friends, perhaps even of relations, to whom
marriage was a failure owing to this uncontrollable desire on the part
of the woman to assume a position to which neither birth nor wealth
entitled her.

To the general rule, however, my love was an exception. Times without
number had she declared her anxiety to settle in the country; for,
being country born and bred, she was an excellent horsewoman, and in
every essential a thorough English girl of the Grass Country, fond of
a run with either fox or otter hounds; therefore, in suburban life at
Kew, she had been entirely out of her element.

In that letter I wrote, composing it slowly and carefully--for like
most medical men I am a bad hand at literary composition--I sought her
forgiveness, and asked for an immediate interview. The wisdom of being
so precipitous never occurred to me. I only know that in