long to him; and even if there had been no 'Robinson's' to shock
you, I do not care the least little bit for poor Tom Robinson; yet
surely for that very reason," protested Dora with a sudden revulsion of
feeling, "I am at liberty to pity him."

"If you will take my advice, Dora," said shrewd Annie, sinking back on
her pillow as a sign that the untimely discussion ought to come to an
end, "you will get rid of your pity as quickly as you can. It is not
your pity which he seeks--very likely he would rage like a bear, for as
quiet as he can look, at the mere mention of it. But it strikes me that
it is not safe for either of you."

CHAPTER III.

THE HEADS OF THE HOUSE LOOK GRAVE.

"It is a thousand pities," said Dr. Millar, holding a consultation with
his wife, while he sipped his glass of sherry and ate his biscuit,
before retiring for the night, after his last round among the patients
in greatest need of his visits.

In spite of his daughter Dora's preference for tall men, the Doctor was
short and rather stout. He ought to have looked comfortable, he had the
physique and air of a comfortable man, but a certain harassed, careworn
expression was beginning to settle down on the spectacled face which had
once been round, rosy, and very comely. He was at least twenty years
older than his wife. The old-fashioned practice had prevailed in the
old-fashioned town, of elderly men, whether bachelors or widowers,
ending by marrying for the first or the second time women a score or
more years their juniors. Indeed, Dr. Millar was hard upon seventy,
though he had till recent bad times carried his years so well that he
had looked ten years younger than his actual age.

Mrs. Millar also began to look worried as a rule, though she had more of
the woman's faculty of putting the best face on things, both in public
and in private. She was a tall woman, who had enjoyed the advantages of
what was called "an elegant figure" in her youth. Now she was large and
heavy, with a mixture of unconscious stateliness and wistful
motherliness in her gait and gestures. Like Dr. Millar, she ought to
have seemed at least easy-minded, but circumstances were becoming more
and more against the happy condition, of which a pervading atmosphere of
content and cheerfulness should have been the outward expression.

The man and woman were not cut out, so to speak, for adversity. They had
not been seasoned to it in their younger days. On the contrary, th