CHAPTER II.
THE DOCTOR QUESTIONS LADY MARY, AND SHE ANSWERS.
“I like your vicar so much, Lady Mary,” said I, so soon as he was gone. “He has read, travelled, and thought, and having also suffered, he ought to be an accomplished companion.”
“So he is, and, better still, he is a really good man,” said she. “His advice is invaluable about my schools, and all my little undertakings at Dawlbridge, and he’s so painstaking, he takes so much trouble—you have no idea—wherever he thinks he can be of use: he’s so good-natured and so sensible.”
“It is pleasant to hear so good an account of his neighbourly virtues. I can only testify to his being an agreeable and gentle companion, and in addition to what you have told me, I think I can tell you two or three things about him,” said I.
“Really!”
“Yes, to begin with, he’s unmarried.”
“Yes, that’s right,—go on.”
“He has been writing, that is he was, but for two or three years perhaps, he has not gone on with his work, and the book was upon some rather abstract subject—perhaps theology.”