"Well; yes,--and affectionate. I should certainly say that she is affectionate."

"I'm sure she's clever."

"Yes, I think she's clever."

"And, and--and womanly in her feelings." Mrs. Gresham felt that she could not quite say lady-like, though she would fain have done so had she dared.

"Oh, certainly," said the doctor. "But, Mary, why are you dissecting Miss Dunstable's character with so much ingenuity?"

"Well, uncle, I will tell you why; because--" and Mrs. Gresham, while she was speaking, got up from her chair, and going round the table to her uncle's side, put her arm round his neck till her face was close to his, and then continued speaking as she stood behind him out of his sight--"because--I think that Miss Dunstable is--is very fond of you; and that it would make her happy if you would--ask her to be your wife."

"Mary!" said the doctor, turning round with an endeavour to look his niece in the face.

"I am quite in earnest, uncle--quite in earnest. From little things that she has said, and little things that I have seen, I do believe what I now tell you."

"And you want me to--"

"Dear uncle; my own one darling uncle, I want you only to do that which will make you--make you happy. What is Miss Dunstable to me compared to you?" And then she stooped down and kissed him.

The doctor was apparently too much astounded by the intimation given him to make any further immediate reply. His niece, seeing this, left him that she might go and dress; and when they met again in the drawing-room Frank Gresham was with them.

CHAPTER XXIX.

MISS DUNSTABLE AT HOME.

Miss Dunstable did not look like a love-lorn maiden, as she stood in a small ante-chamber at the top of her drawing-room stairs receiving her guests. Her house was one of those abnormal mansions, which are to be seen here and there in London, built in compliance rather with the rules of rural architecture, than with those which usually govern the erection of city streets and town terraces. It stood back from its brethren, and alone, so that its owner could walk round it. It was approached by a short carriageway; the chief door was in the back of the building; and the front of the house looked on to one of the parks. Miss Dunstable in procuring it had had her usual luck. It had been built by an eccentric millionnaire at an enormous cost; and the eccentric millionnaire, after living in it for twelve months, had declared that it did not possess a single comfort, and that it was deficient in most of those details which, in point of house accommodation, are necessary to the very existence of man.

Consequently the mansion was sold, and Miss Dunstable was the purchaser. Cranbourn House it had been named, and its present owner had made no change in this respect; but the world at large very generally called it Ointment Hall, and Miss Dunstable herself as frequently used that name for it as any other. It was impossible to quiz Miss Dunstable with any success, because she always joined in the joke herself.

Not a word further had pa.s.sed between Mrs. Gresham and Dr. Thorne on the subject of their last conversation; but the doctor as he entered the lady's portals amongst a tribe of servants and in a glare of light, and saw the crowd before him and the crowd behind him, felt that it was quite impossible that he should ever be at home there.

It might be all right that a Miss Dunstable should live in this way, but it could not be right that the wife of Dr. Thorne should so live.

But all this was a matter of the merest speculation, for he was well aware--as he said to himself a dozen times--that his niece had blundered strangely in her reading of Miss Dunstable's character.

When the Gresham party entered the ante-room into which the staircase opened, they found Miss Dunstable standing there surrounded by a few of her most intimate allies. Mrs. Harold Smith was sitting quite close to her; Dr. Easyman was reclining on a sofa against the wall, and the lady who habitually lived with Miss Dunstable was by his side. One or two others were there also, so that a little running conversation was kept up, in order to relieve Miss Dunstable of the tedium which might otherwise be engendered by the work she had in hand. As Mrs. Gresham, leaning on her husband's arm, entered the room, she saw the back of Mrs. Proudie, as that lady made her way through the opposite door, leaning on the arm of the bishop.

Mrs. Harold Smith had apparently recovered from the annoyance which she must no doubt have felt when Miss Dunstable so utterly rejected her suit on behalf of her brother. If any feeling had existed, even for a day, calculated to put a stop to the intimacy between the two ladies, that feeling had altogether died away, for Mrs. Harold Smith was conversing with her friend, quite in the old way. She made some remark on each of the guests as they pa.s.sed by, and apparently did so in a manner satisfactory to the owner of the house, for Miss Dunstable answered with her kindest smiles, and in that genial, happy tone of voice which gave its peculiar character to her good humour:

"She is quite convinced that you are a mere plagiarist in what you are doing," said Mrs. Harold Smith, speaking of Mrs. Proudie.

"And so I am. I don't suppose there can be anything very original now-a-days about an evening party."

"But she thinks you are copying her."

"And why not? I copy everybody that I see, more or less. You did not at first begin to wear big petticoats out of your own head? If Mrs.

Proudie has any such pride as that, pray don't rob her of it. Here's the doctor and the Greshams. Mary, my darling, how are you?" and in spite of all her grandeur of apparel, Miss Dunstable took hold of Mrs. Gresham and kissed her--to the disgust of the dozen-and-a-half of the distinguished fashionable world who were pa.s.sing up the stairs behind.

The doctor was somewhat repressed in his mode of address by the communication which had so lately been made to him. Miss Dunstable was now standing on the very top of the pinnacle of wealth, and seemed to him to be not only so much above his reach, but also so far removed from his track in life, that he could not in any way put himself on a level with her. He could neither aspire so high nor descend so low; and thinking of this he spoke to Miss Dunstable as though there were some great distance between them,--as though there had been no hours of intimate friendship down at Greshamsbury. There had been such hours, during which Miss Dunstable and Dr. Thorne had lived as though they belonged to the same world: and this at any rate may be said of Miss Dunstable, that she had no idea of forgetting them.

Dr. Thorne merely gave her his hand, and then prepared to pa.s.s on.

"Don't go, doctor," she said; "for heaven's sake, don't go yet. I don't know when I may catch you if you get in there. I shan't be able to follow you for the next two hours. Lady Meredith, I am so much obliged to you for coming--your mother will be here, I hope. Oh, I am so glad! From her you know that is quite a favour. You, Sir George, are half a sinner yourself, so I don't think so much about it."

"Oh, quite so," said Sir George; "perhaps rather the largest half."

"The men divide the world into G.o.ds and giants," said Miss Dunstable.

"We women have our divisions also. We are saints or sinners according to our party. The worst of it is, that we rat almost as often as you do." Whereupon Sir George laughed and pa.s.sed on.

"I know, doctor, you don't like this kind of thing," she continued, "but there is no reason why you should indulge yourself altogether in your own way, more than another--is there, Frank?"

"I am not so sure but he does like it," said Mr. Gresham. "There are some of your reputed friends whom he owns that he is anxious to see."

"Are there? Then there is some hope of his ratting too. But he'll never make a good staunch sinner; will he, Mary? You're too old to learn new tricks; eh, doctor?"

"I am afraid I am," said the doctor, with a faint laugh.

"Does Dr. Thorne rank himself among the army of saints?" asked Mrs.

Harold Smith.

"Decidedly," said Miss Dunstable. "But you must always remember that there are saints of different orders; are there not, Mary? and n.o.body supposes that the Franciscans and the Dominicans agree very well together. Dr. Thorne does not belong to the school of St. Proudie, of Barchester; he would prefer the priestess whom I see coming round the corner of the staircase, with a very famous young novice at her elbow."

"From all that I can hear, you will have to reckon Miss Grantly among the sinners," said Mrs. Harold Smith--seeing that Lady Lufton with her young friend was approaching--"unless, indeed, you can make a saint of Lady Hartletop."

And then Lady Lufton entered the room, and Miss Dunstable came forward to meet her with more quiet respect in her manner than she had as yet shown to many of her guests. "I am much obliged to you for coming, Lady Lufton," she said, "and the more so, for bringing Miss Grantly with you."

Lady Lufton uttered some pretty little speech, during which Dr.

Thorne came up and shook hands with her; as did also Frank Gresham and his wife. There was a county acquaintance between the Framley people and the Greshamsbury people, and therefore there was a little general conversation before Lady Lufton pa.s.sed out of the small room into what Mrs. Proudie would have called the n.o.ble suite of apartments. "Papa will be here," said Miss Grantly; "at least so I understand. I have not seen him yet myself."

"Oh, yes, he has promised me," said Miss Dunstable; "and the archdeacon, I know, will keep his word. I should by no means have the proper ecclesiastical balance without him."

"Papa always does keep his word," said Miss Grantly, in a tone that was almost severe. She had not at all understood poor Miss Dunstable's little joke, or at any rate she was too dignified to respond to it.

"I understand that old Sir John is to accept the Chiltern Hundreds at once," said Lady Lufton, in a half whisper to Frank Gresham. Lady Lufton had always taken a keen interest in the politics of East Ba.r.s.etshire, and was now desirous of expressing her satisfaction that a Gresham should again sit for the county. The Greshams had been old county members in Ba.r.s.etshire, time out of mind.

"Oh, yes; I believe so," said Frank, blushing. He was still young enough to feel almost ashamed of putting himself forward for such high honours.

"There will be no contest, of course," said Lady Lufton, confidentially. "There seldom is in East Ba.r.s.etshire, I am happy to say. But if there were, every tenant at Framley would vote on the right side; I can a.s.sure you of that. Lord Lufton was saying so to me only this morning."

Frank Gresham made a pretty little speech in reply, such as young sucking politicians are expected to make; and this, with sundry other small courteous murmurings, detained the Lufton party for a minute or two in the ante-chamber. In the meantime the world was pressing on and pa.s.sing through to the four or five large reception-rooms--the n.o.ble suite, which was already piercing poor Mrs. Proudie's heart with envy to the very core. "These are the sort of rooms," she said to herself unconsciously, "which ought to be provided by the country for the use of its bishops."

"But the people are not brought enough together," she said to her lord.

"No, no; I don't think they are," said the bishop.

"And that is so essential for a conversazione," continued Mrs.

Proudie. "Now in Gloucester Place--." But we will not record all her adverse criticisms, as Lady Lufton is waiting for us in the ante-room.