One of Mrs. Hamley’s often-expressed wishes had been, that Molly might come and pay her a visit.  Mr. Gibson always refused this request of hers, though he could hardly have given his reasons for these refusals.  He did not want to lose the companionship of his child, in fact; but he put it to himself in quite a different way.  He thought her lessons and her regular course of employment would be interrupted.  The life in Mrs. Hamley’s heated and scented room would not be good for the girl; Osborne and Roger Hamley would be at home, and he did not wish Molly to be thrown too exclusively upon them for young society; or they would not be at home, and it would be rather dull and depressing for his girl to be all the day long with a nervous invalid.

But at length the day came when Mr. Gibson rode over, and volunteered a visit from Molly; an offer which Mrs. Hamley received with the ’open arms of her heart,’ as she expressed it; and of which the duration was unspecified.  And the cause for this change in Mr Gibson’s wishes was as follows:—­It has been mentioned that he took pupils, rather against his inclination, it is true; but there they were, a Mr. Wynne and Mr. Coxe, ‘the young gentlemen,’ as they were called in the household; ’Mr. Gibson’s young gentlemen,’ as they were termed in the town.  Mr. Wynne was the elder, the more experienced one, who could occasionally take his master’s place, and who gained experience by visiting the poor, and the ‘chronic cases.’  Mr. Gibson used to talk over his practice with Mr. Wynne, and try and elicit his opinions in the vain hope that, some day or another, Mr. Wynne might start an original thought.  The young man was cautious and slow; he would never do any harm by his rashness, but at the same time he would always be a little behind his day.  Still Mr. Gibson remembered that he had had far worse ‘young gentlemen’ to deal with; and was content with, if not thankful for, such an elder pupil as Mr. Wynne.  Mr. Coxe was a boy of nineteen or so, with brilliant red hair, and a tolerably red face, of both of which he was very conscious and much ashamed.  He was the son of an Indian officer, an old acquaintance of Mr. Gibson’s.  Major Coxe was at some unpronounceable station in the Punjaub, at the present time; but the year before he had been in England, and had repeatedly expressed his great satisfaction at having placed his only child as a pupil to his old friend, and had in fact almost charged Mr. Gibson with the guardianship as well as the instruction of his boy, giving him many injunctions which he thought were special in this case; but which Mr. Gibson with a touch of annoyance assured the major were always attended to in every case, with every pupil.  But when the poor major ventured to beg that his boy might be considered as one of the family, and that he might spend his evenings in the drawing-room instead of the surgery, Mr Gibson turned upon him with a direct refusal.

’He must live like the others.  I can’t have the pestle and mortar carried into the drawing-room, and the place smelling of aloes.’