The meeting between Lady Arabella and the doctor was rather distressing to the former; but she managed to get over it.  She shook hands with him graciously, and said that it was a fine day.  The doctor said that it was fine, only perhaps a little rainy.  And then they went into different parts of the room.

When Frank came in, the doctor hardly did know him.  His hair was darker than it had been, and so was his complexion; but his chief disguise was in a long silken beard, which hung down over his cravat.  The doctor had hitherto not been much in favour of long beards, but he could not deny that Frank looked very well with the appendage.

‘Oh, doctor, I am so delighted to find you here,’ said he, coming up to him; ‘so very, very glad:’  and, taking the doctor’s arm, he led him away into a window, where they were alone.  ‘And how is Mary?’ said he, almost in a whisper.  ’Oh, I wish she were here!  But, doctor, it shall all come in time.  But tell me, doctor, there is no news about her, is there?’

‘News—­what news?’

‘Oh, well; no news is good news:  you will give her my love, won’t you?’

The doctor said that he would.  What else could he say?  It appeared quite clear to him that some of Mary’s fears were groundless.

Frank was again very much altered.  It has been said, that though he was a boy at twenty-one, he was a man at twenty-two.  But now, at twenty-three, he appeared to be almost a man of the world.  His manners were easy, his voice under his control, and words were at his command:  he was no longer either shy or noisy; but, perhaps, was open to the charge of seeming, at least, to be too conscious of his own merits.  He was, indeed, very handsome; tall, manly, and powerfully built, his form was such as women’s eyes have ever loved to look upon.  ’Ah, if he would but marry money!’ said Lady Arabella to herself, taken up by a mother’s natural admiration for her son.  His sisters clung around him before dinner, all talking to him at once.  How proud a family of girls are of one, big, tall, burly brother!

’You don’t mean to tell me, Frank, that you are going to eat soup with that beard?’ said the squire, when they were seated round the table.  He had not ceased to rally his son as to this patriarchal adornment; but, nevertheless, any one could have seen, with half and eye, that he was as proud of it as were the others.

‘Don’t I, sir?  All I require is a relay of napkins for every course;’ and he went to work, covering it with every spoonful, as men with beards always do.

‘Well, if you like it!’ said the squire, shrugging his shoulders.

‘But I do like it,’ said Frank.

‘Oh, papa, you wouldn’t have him cut it off,’ said one of the twins.  ’It is so handsome.’

‘I should like to work it into a chair-back instead of floss-silk,’ said the other twin.

’Thank ‘ee, Sophy; I’ll remember you for that.’