Minima, too, became perfectly reconciled to her new position; though for a time she was anxious lest we were spending our riches too lavishly.  I heard her one day soundly rating Dr. John, who seldom came to his father’s house without bringing some trinket, or bouquet, or toy, for one or other of us.

“You are wasting all your money,” she said, with that anxious little pucker of her eyebrows, which was gradually being smoothed away altogether, “you’re just like the boys after the holidays.  They would buy lots of things every time the cake-woman came—­and she came every day—­till they’d spent all their money.  You can’t always have cakes, you know, and then you’ll miss them.”

“But I shall have cakes always.” answered Dr. John.

“Nobody has them always,” she said, in an authoritative tone, “and you won’t like being poor.  We were so poor we daren’t buy as much as we could eat; and our boots wore out at the toes.  You like to have nice boots, and gloves, and things, so you must learn to take care of your money, and not waste it like this.”

“I’m not wasting my money, little woman,” he replied, “when I buy pretty things for you and Olivia.”

“Why doesn’t Dr. Martin do it then?” she asked; “he never spends his money in that sort of way.  Why doesn’t he give auntie as many things as you do?”

Martin had been listening to Minima’s rebukes with a smile upon his face; but now it clouded a little, and I knew he glanced across to me.  I appeared deeply absorbed in the book I held in my hand, and he did not see that I was listening and watching attentively.

“Minima,” he said, in a low tone, as if he did not care that even she should hear, “I gave her all I had worth giving when I saw her first.”

“That’s just how it will be with you, Dr. John,” exclaimed Minima, triumphantly, “you’ll give us every thing you have, and then you’ll have nothing left for yourself.”

But still, unless Martin had taken back what he gave to me so long ago, his conduct was very mysterious to me.  He did not come to Fulham half as often as Dr. John did; and when he came he spent most of the time in long, professional discussions with Dr. Senior.  They told me he was devoted to his profession, and it really seemed as if he had not time to think of any thing else.

Neither had I very much time for brooding over any subject, for guests began to frequent the house, which became much gayer, Dr. Senior said, now there was a young hostess in it.  The quiet evenings of autumn and winter were gone, and instead of them our engagements accumulated on our hands, until I very rarely met Martin except at some entertainment, where we were surrounded by strangers.  Martin was certainly at a disadvantage among a crowd of mere acquaintances, where Dr. John was quite at home.  He was not as handsome, and he did not possess the same ease and animation.  So he was a little apt to get into corners with Dr. Senior’s scientific friends, and to be somewhat awkward and dull if he were forced into gayer society.  Dr. John called him glum.