now when they met in consultation; and Mr. Chubb, the county apothecary, would he laugh and ask him if he could read his own prescriptions?  Then he recurred to a dream—­for it was so vague at that time as to be little more—­whether it would not be better to abandon altogether country practice, and establish himself in the metropolis—­London.  A thousand pounds, advantageously spent, with a few introductions, would do a great deal in London, and that was not a third of what he had.  And this great idea banished all remembrance of the past, all sense of the present—­the young aspirant thought only of the future.

CHAPTER II.

Five years have passed.  Dr. John Adams was “settled” in a small “showy” house in the vicinity of Mayfair; he had, the world said, made an excellent match.  He married a very pretty girl, “highly connected,” and was considered to be possessed of personal property, because, for so young a physician, Dr. Adams lived in “a superior style.”  His brother Charles was still residing in the old farm-house, to which, beyond the mere keeping it in repair, he had done but little, except, indeed, adding a wife to his establishment—­a very gentle, loving, yet industrious girl, whose dower was too small to have been her only attraction.  Thus both brothers might be said to be fairly launched in life.

It might be imagined that Charles Adams, having determined to reside in his native village, and remain, what his father and grandfather had been, a simple gentleman farmer, and that rather on a small than a large scale, was altogether without that feeling of ambition which stimulates exertion and elevates the mind.  Charles Adams had quite enough of this—­which may be said, like fire, to be “a good servant, but a bad master”—­but he made it subservient to the dictates of prudence—­and a forethought, the gift, perhaps, that, above all others, we should most earnestly covet for those whose prosperity we would secure.  To save his brother’s portion of the freehold from going into the hands of strangers, he incurred a debt; and wisely—­while he gave to his land all that was necessary to make it yield its increase—­he abridged all other expenses, and was ably seconded in this by his wife, who resolved, until principal and interest were discharged, to live quietly and carefully.  Charles contended that every appearance made beyond a man’s means was an attempted fraud upon the public; while John shook his head, and answered that it might do very well for Charles to say so, as no one expected the sack that brought the grain to market to be of fine Holland, but that no man in a profession could get on in London without making “an appearance.”  At this Charles shrugged his shoulders, and thanked God he lived at Repton.