re, in a breath; and
she alone in the world, with an uncle who was only glad to get rid of
her to her stranger guardian. Well,--she was too young and too bright
and too gay to be much downcast for all the old women could do. She
laughed at their scolding, and when they tried severity she appealed
to Sir Timothy. The old doctor who was my predecessor here told me at
the time that he thought she had bewitched Sir Timothy; but afterwards
he said that he believed it was only that Sir Timothy had made up his
mind even then to quarter the Setoun arms with his own. Anyway, he
went against his sisters for the first and only time in his life, and
they learnt that Lady Mary was not to be interfered with. Whether it
was gratitude or just the childish satisfaction of triumphing over her
two enemies, I can't tell, but she married him in less than two years
after she came to live at Barracombe. The old ladies didn't know
whether to be angry or pleased. They wanted him to marry, and they
wanted his wife to be well-born, no doubt; but to have a mere child
set over them! Well, the marriage took place in London."

"I was present," said John.

"The people here said things about it that may have got round to Sir
Timothy; but I don't know. He never came down to the village, except
to church, where he sat away from everybody, in the gallery curtained
off. Anyway, he wouldn't have the wedding down here. He invited all
her relatives, and none of them had a word to say. It wasn't as if she
were an heiress. I believe she had next to nothing. She was just like
a child, laughing, and pleased at getting married, and with all her
finery, perhaps,--or at getting rid of her lessons with the old women
may be,--and the thought of babies of her own. Who knows what a girl
thinks of?" said the doctor, harshly. "I didn't see her again for a
long time after. But then I came down; the Brawnton doctor was getting
old, and it was a question whether I should succeed him or go on in
London, where I was doing well enough. And--and I came here," said the
doctor, abruptly.

John nodded again. He filled in the gaps of the doctor's narrative for
himself, and understood.

"She had changed very much. All the gaiety and laughter gone. But she
was wrapt up in the child as I never saw any woman wrapt up in a brat
before or since; and I've known some that were pretty ridiculous in
that way," said the doctor, and his voice shook more than ever. "It
was--touching, for sh