“Ruined!” said Harriett Phillips.  “He said he was ruined, or something like it, before he left.  Are his affairs really in such a bad state?”

“Oh, it’s not exactly his affairs, but he got unsettled and would not work as he used to do.  He overturned most of my arrangements at Wiriwilta; and I am sure Mr. Phillips will not find himself any the better for his alterations.  He is so foolishly confiding.  Now, I like to look sharply after my people, and then I see what work I get out of them.”

“I think you are quite right, Dr. Grant.  I have remarked the want of that prudence in both Mr. Brandon and my brother.  They think it proceeds from benevolence, but I attribute it more to indolence and the dislike to give themselves any trouble they can avoid,” said Harriett.

Dr. Grant was piqued at being deprived of Mr. Phillips’s agency, for though he had protested against taking it, he had found it very lucrative; he was also piqued at Mrs. Phillips staying in town for her confinement, though he always declared that he detested practising, and only did it as an accommodation to his neighbours; but both things had added alike to his emolument and his importance, and he was extremely jealous of any slight being cast either on his business knowledge or his professional skill.

On this occasion he offered to stay in Melbourne for a week or so after Phillips left, merely as a friend, to see how Mrs. Phillips was going on, and to take up a full and satisfactory account to the station.  Though he was not her medical attendant, he was as much in the house, and far more than he had ever been before.  When the week was over, he appeared to be in no hurry to go away, but wrote to Phillips instead; and hung about the house, went errands for her or her sister-in-law, took Harriett out for walks and drives, brought all his Melbourne acquaintances to call on her, and to inquire for Mrs. Phillips and the baby, and was himself engaged for several hours of every day in conversation with Harriett.

He had come to Melbourne determined to fall in love with Miss Phillips, whose likeness he had seen and admired at Wiriwilta years ago, and whose face and figure, when seen in reality quite came up to his expectations, while her air and manners were exactly suited to his taste.  He knew that she had a fortune—­not large, certainly, but tempting to a man who was not exactly poor, but always more or less embarrassed.  Her perfect self-possession, her good education, her musical talents, her excellent connections, her stylish way of dressing, her very egotism, were all charming to a man who wanted a wife who would do him credit.