an, I allow," said Miss Brabazon,
candidly; and then added, with a sidelong glance of alarming sweetness,
"but when Dr. Fenwick has taken his true position (so old a family!)
amongst us, he need not long remain single, unless he prefer it."

I replied, with more asperity than the occasion called for, that I had
no thought of changing my residence at present, and if the Hill wanted
me, the Hill must send for me.

Two days afterwards Dr. Lloyd took Abbots' House, and in less than a
week was proclaimed medical adviser to the Hill. The election had been
decided by the fiat of a great lady, who reigned supreme on the sacred
eminence, under the name and title of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz.

"Dr. Fenwick," said this lady, "is a clever young man and a gentleman,
but he gives himself airs,--the Hill does not allow any airs but its
own. Besides, he is a new comer: resistance to new corners, and, indeed,
to all things new, except caps and novels, is one of the bonds that keep
old established societies together. Accordingly, it is by my advice that
Dr. Lloyd has taken Abbots' House; the rent would be too high for his
means if the Hill did not feel bound in honour to justify the trust he
has placed in its patronage. I told him that all my friends, when they
were in want of a doctor, would send for him; those who are my friends
will do so. What the Hill does, plenty of common people down there will
do also,--so that question is settled!" And it was settled.

Dr. Lloyd, thus taken by the hand, soon extended the range of his visits
beyond the Hill, which was not precisely a mountain of gold to doctors,
and shared with myself, though in a comparatively small degree, the much
more lucrative practice of Low Town.

I had no cause to grudge his success, nor did I. But to my theories of
medicine his diagnosis was shallow, and his prescriptions obsolete. When
we were summoned to a joint consultation, our views as to the proper
course of treatment seldom agreed. Doubtless he thought I ought to have
deferred to his seniority in years; but I held the doctrine which youth
deems a truth and age a paradox,--namely, that in science the young men
are the practical elders, inasmuch as they are schooled in the latest
experiences science has gathered up, while their seniors are cramped by
the dogmas they were schooled to believe when the world was some decades
the younger.

Meanwhile my reputation continued rapidly to advance; it became more
than local;