ating cares." She was to the mind what the
colour of green is to the eye. She had, therefore, excellent sense in
all that relates to every-day life. There, she needed not to consult
another; there, the wisest might have consulted her with profit. But
the moment anything, however trivial in itself, jarred on the routine to
which her mind had grown wedded, the moment an incident hurried her out
of the beaten track of woman's daily life, then her confidence forsook
her; then she needed a confidant, an adviser; and by that confidant
or adviser she could be credulously lured or submissively controlled.
Therefore, when she lost, in Mr. Vigors, the guide she had been
accustomed to consult whenever she needed guidance, she turned;
helplessly and piteously, first to Mrs. Poyntz, and then yet more
imploringly to me, because a woman of that character is never quite
satisfied without the advice of a man; and where an intimacy more
familiar than that of his formal visits is once established with a
physician, confidence in him grows fearless and rapid, as the natural
result of sympathy concentrated on an object of anxiety in common
between himself and the home which opens its sacred recess to his
observant but tender eye. Thus Mrs. Ashleigh had shown me Mr. Vigors's
letter, and, forgetting that I might not be as amiable as herself,
besought me to counsel her how to conciliate and soften her lost
husband's friend and connection. That character clothed him with dignity
and awe in her soft forgiving eyes. So, smothering my own resentment,
less perhaps at the tone of offensive insinuation against myself than
at the arrogance with which this prejudiced intermeddler implied to a
mother the necessity of his guardian watch over a child under her
own care, I sketched a reply which seemed to me both dignified and
placatory, abstaining from all discussion, and conveying the assurance
that Mrs. Ashleigh would be at all times glad to hear, and disposed to
respect, whatever suggestion so esteemed a friend of her husband would
kindly submit to her for the welfare of her daughter.

There all communication had stopped for about a month since the date of
my reintroduction to Abbots' House. One afternoon I unexpectedly met Mr.
Vigors at the entrance of the blind lane, I on my way to Abbots' House,
and my first glance at his face told me that he was coming from it, for
the expression of that face was more than usually sinister; the sullen
scowl was lit