, thought they did a little better towards the end, when
they got a store, and Mrs. Beauchamp kept it. Do you hear that, Maria?"
cried the Doctor, with a half-humorous, half-indignant emphasis.

"Yes, I hear," replied Mrs. Millar, with an obstinate inflection of her
voice which said, "I am of my own opinion still." She illustrated this
by adding, in an undertone, "They were in Australia."

"A store," continued the Doctor, "is the rudest, most uncouth kind of
shop; and Beauchamp was not fit to keep it, he had to turn it over to
his wife, who was thankful to serve shepherds and bush-rangers for aught
I know. She lost one child in the bush, God help her! The little thing
wandered away and was never heard of again; and her other child, a boy,
who grew up, did not turn out well. I tell you, I never like to think or
speak of the mother."

"Poor Aunt Penny!" said Mrs. Millar hastily. "But there is one
thing"--with a sudden accent of triumph in the perception that she had
the advantage of her husband at last--"your Aunt Penny married the man
she cared for; she got her choice, and in that light she had no reason
to complain, though she had to abide by it."

The Doctor was a little taken aback. "I do not know that she
complained--at least her people at home heard nothing of it. And you
must do me the justice of owning that I have done nothing to force
Dora's inclinations. Indeed, I am not clear that I have done my duty. I
ought to have reasoned with the girl. Robinson is not only a good man,
he is also a gentleman, every inch of him, so was his father before
him."

"In the choice of Jenny Coppock, of Coppock's Farm, for a wife!"
exclaimed Mrs. Millar, still rebellious, even satirical and disdainful.

"He was entitled to choose whom he would, I suppose, so long as she was
an honest woman, and Jenny Coppock was that quite as much as her husband
was a gentleman. She made him happy, I believe, strange as it may sound
to some people, as ladies do not always make their husbands happy--you
know I mean nothing personal, Maria. Whether she was quite happy herself
is a different question, of which I have had no means of judging. But I
have heard you yourself say that she never presumed on her rise in rank,
or sought to thrust her comely, kindly face where it was not wanted. Her
son has a look of her, without her good looks. Poor Mrs. Robinson! I was
with her in her first and last illness, as you are aware, and a more
courageous, self