A STRANGE STORY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL" "RIENZI" &c.

CHAPTER. XVI.

IT was with a wrath suppressed in the presence
of the fair ambassadress, that Mr. Vigors
had received from Mrs. Poyntz the intelligence
that I had replaced Dr. Jones at Abbots' House,
not less abruptly than Dr. Jones had previously
supplanted me. As Mrs. Poyntz took upon
herself the whole responsibility of this change,
Mr. Vigors did not venture to condemn it to
her face: for the Administrator of Laws was at
heart no little in awe of the Autocrat of
Proprieties; as Authority, howsoever established, is
in awe of Opinion, howsoever capricious.

To the mild Mrs. Ashleigh the magistrate's
anger was more decidedly manifested. He ceased
his visits; and in answer to a long and
deprecatory letter with which she endeavoured to
soften his resentment and win him back to the
house, he replied by an elaborate combination of
homily and satire. He began by excusing
himself from accepting her invitations, on the
ground that his time was valuable, his habits
domestic; and though ever willing to sacrifice
both time and habits where he could do good,
he owed it to himself and to mankind to sacrifice
neither where his advice was rejected and
his opinion contemned. He glanced briefly, but
not hastily, at the respect with which her late
husband had deferred to his judgment, and the
benefits which that deference had enabled him
to bestow. He contrasted the husband's deference
with the widow's contumely, and hinted at
the evils which the contumely would not permit
him to prevent. He could not presume to say
what women of the world might think due to
deceased husbands, but even women of the
world generally allowed the claims of living
children, and did not act with levity where their
interests were concerned, still less where their
lives were at stake. As to Dr. Jones, he, Mr.
Vigors, had the fullest confidence in his skill.
Mrs. Ashleigh must judge for herself whether
Mrs. Poyntz was as good an authority upon
medical science as he had no doubt she was
upon shawls and ribbons. Dr. Jones was a
man of caution and modesty; he did not indulge
in the hollow boasts by which charlatans
decoy their dupes; but Dr. Jones had privately
assured him that though the case was one that
admitted of no rash experiments, he had no
fear of the result if his own prudent system
were persevered in. What might be the
consequences of any other system, Dr. Jones would not
say, because he was too high-minded to express
his distrust of the rival who had made use of
underhand arts to supplant him. But Mr.
Vigors was convinced, from other sources of
information (meaning, I presume, the oracular
prescience of his clairvoyants), that the time
would come when the poor young lady would
herself insist on discarding Dr. Fenwick, and
when "that person" would appear in a very
different light to many who now so fondly
admired and so reverentially trusted him. When
that time arrived, he, Mr. Vigors, might again be
of use; but, meanwhile, though he declined to
renew his intimacy at Abbots' House, or to pay
unavailing visits of mere ceremony, his interest
in the daughter of his old friend remained
undiminished, nay, was rather increased by
compassion; that he should silently keep his eye
upon her; and whenever anything to her
advantage suggested itself to him, he should not
be deterred by the slight with which Mrs.
Ashleigh had treated his judgment, from calling on
her, and placing before her conscience as a
mother, his ideas for her child's benefit, leaving
to herself then, as now, the entire responsibility
of rejecting the advice which he might say, without
vanity, was deemed of some value by those
who could distinguish between sterling qualities
and specious pretences.

Mrs. Ashleigh's was that thoroughly womanly
nature which instinctively leans upon others.
She was diffident, trustful, meek, affectionate.
Not quite justly had Mrs. Poyntz described
her as "common-place weak," for though
she might be called weak, it was not because
she was common-place; she had a goodness of
heart, a sweetness of disposition, to which that
disparaging definition could not apply. She
could only be called common-place, inasmuch as
in the ordinary daily affairs of life she had a
great deal of ordinary daily common-place good
sense. Give her a routine to follow, and no
routine could be better adhered to. In the
allotted sphere of a woman's duties she never
seemed in fault. No household, not even Mrs.
Poyntz's, was more happily managed. The old
Abbots' House had merged its original
antique gloom in the softer character of pleasing