CHAPTER XVI.

It was with a wrath suppressed in the presence of the fair ambassadress,
that Mr. Vigors had received from Mrs. Poyntz the intelligence that I
had replaced Dr. Jones at Abbots' House not less abruptly than Dr. Jones
had previously supplanted me. As Mrs. Poyntz took upon herself the whole
responsibility of this change, Mr. Vigors did not venture to condemn it
to her face; for the Administrator of Laws was at heart no little in awe
of the Autocrat of Proprieties; as Authority, howsoever established, is
in awe of Opinion, howsoever capricious.

To the mild Mrs. Ashleigh the magistrate's anger was more decidedly
manifested. He ceased his visits; and in answer to a long and
deprecatory letter with which she endeavoured to soften his resentment
and win him back to the house, he replied by an elaborate combination
of homily and satire. He began by excusing himself from accepting
her invitations, on the ground that his time was valuable, his habits
domestic; and though ever willing to sacrifice both time and habits
where he could do good, he owed it to himself and to mankind to
sacrifice neither where his advice was rejected and his opinion
contemned. He glanced briefly, but not hastily, at the respect with
which her late husband had deferred to his judgment, and the benefits
which that deference had enabled him to bestow. He contrasted the
husband's deference with the widow's contumely, and hinted at the
evils which the contumely would not permit him to prevent. He could
not presume to say what women of the world might think due to deceased
husbands, but even women of the world generally allowed the claims of
living children, and did not act with levity where their interests were
concerned, still less where their lives were at stake. As to Dr. Jones,
he, Mr. Vigors, had the fullest confidence in his skill. Mrs. Ashleigh
must judge for herself whether Mrs. Poyntz was as good an authority upon
medical science as he had no doubt she was upon shawls and ribbons. Dr.
Jones was a man of caution and modesty; he did not indulge in the
hollow boasts by which charlatans decoy their dupes; but Dr. Jones had
privately assured him that though the case was one that admitted of no
rash experiments, he had no fear of the result if his own prudent system
were persevered in. What might be the consequences of any other system,
Dr. Jones would not say, because he was too high-minded to express his
distrust of the rival who