"About Mary?"
"Yes, doctor; about her and Frank: something must be done, some arrangement made: if not for our sakes, at least for theirs."
"What arrangement, squire?"
"Ah! that is the question. I take it for granted that either Frank or Mary has told you that they have engaged themselves to each other."
"Frank told me so twelve months since."
"And has not Mary told you?"
"Not exactly that. But, never mind; she has, I believe, no secret from me. Though I have said but little to her, I think I know it all."
"Well, what then?"
The doctor shook his head and put up his hands. He had nothing to say; no proposition to make; no arrangement to suggest. The thing was so, and he seemed to say that, as far as he was concerned, there was an end of it.
The squire sat looking at him, hardly knowing how to proceed. It seemed to him, that the fact of a young man and a young lady being in love with each other was not a thing to be left to arrange itself, particularly, seeing the rank of life in which they were placed. But the doctor seemed to be of a different opinion.