It has been said that the founder of civil society was the man who first staked off a piece of ground, said it was his, and got fools to believe him: possibly the earldom of Birndale had been founded in some such way; and there it was. But the ancestors of Dr. Brunton had had neither the boldness nor the originality for such a stroke; and there he was, in the estimation of society at a very long distance indeed from equality with the earl of Birndale. But the doctor shut his eyes to this answer to his question, and began to let the tow of discretion go with the bucket of hope.
"Well," said Miss Robertson when Miss Brunton and her brother got home—"well, doctor, has the beauty the gypsy-woman spoke of asked you to marry her yet?"
"I don't suppose ladies ever do that," said Mary, "but Lady Louisa might, I am sure, if beauty may be a law to itself."
Seeing she got no answer from her host, Miss Robertson said, "And what kind of an evening had you?"
"Very pleasant," said Mary: "they were good and kind, and the house is well worth seeing, although, as a rule, I don't care for seeing gentlemen's houses, they are all so much alike. Still, where there are the gatherings of two or three hundred years, it is wonderfully interesting."
The old woman at the lodge still lingered. Never was an old woman so well looked after. Was she proud of the attention she got? did it please her that a doctor and an earl's daughter should wait on her every day? or had the nearness of the eternal world brought everything to its level? It would depend on her natural temperament: there are people whose vanity and self-love can be flattered at the grave's brink. She lingered, and stuck to life like a beech leaf to the tree, which a child's breath might almost blow to the ground. But she had weathered the winter, and the days were stretching out again: it was almost the end of March, with bright sunshine and an occasional softness in the atmosphere that had a tinge of summer in it. As the doctor paid his afternoon visit the sun's beams streamed in at the little window, and hitting some of the tins hung on the wall for ornament, made a glory in the room which caused Bell to yearn for out-door sunshine and the caller air.
"Eh, doctor," she said, "do ye no think I might get the length of the door, just to see how things are looking?"
"Hardly yet, I doubt," he was saying, knowing well that never more would she walk to her own doorstep, when Lady Louisa came in.
"I have only time," she said to Bell, "to ask you how you are and run home again, and I have not time to speak to you at all, Dr. Brunton."
"I'll not detain you," he said. "I go your way, and I'll walk with you: I have a visit to make near the castle."