’Gibson, I wonder if you’d give me some lunch; I’ve been a good deal about since my seven-o’clock breakfast, and am getting quite ravenous.’

Now Mr. Gibson was only too much pleased to show hospitality to one whom he liked and respected so much as Lord Hollingford, and he gladly took him home with him to the early family dinner.  But it was just at the time when the cook was sulking at Bethia’s dismissal—­and she chose to be unpunctual and careless.  There was no successor to Bethia as yet appointed to wait at the meals.  So, though Mr. Gibson knew well that bread-and-cheese, cold beef, or the simplest food available, would have been welcome to the hungry lord, he could not get either these things for luncheon, or even the family dinner, at anything like the proper time, in spite of all his ringing, and as much anger as he liked to show, for fear of making Lord Hollingford uncomfortable.  At last dinner was ready, but the poor host saw the want of nicety—­almost the want of cleanliness, in all its accompaniments—­dingy plate, dull-looking glass, a tablecloth that, if not absolutely dirty, was anything but fresh in its splashed and rumpled condition, and compared it in his own mind with the dainty delicacy with which even a loaf of brown bread was served up at his guest’s home.  He did not apologize directly, but, after dinner, just as they were parting, he said,—­

’You see a man like me—­a widower—­with a daughter who cannot always be at home—­has not the regulated household which would enable me to command the small portions of time I can spend there.’

He made no allusion to the comfortless meal of which they had both partaken, though it was full in his mind.  Nor was it absent from Lord Hollingford’s, as he made reply,—­

’True, true.  Yet a man like you ought to be free from any thought of household cares.  You ought to have somebody.  How old is Miss Gibson?’

‘Seventeen.  It’s a very awkward age for a motherless girl.’

’Yes; very.  I have only boys, but it must be very awkward with a girl.  Excuse me, Gibson, but we’re talking like friends.  Have you never thought of marrying again?  It would not be like a first marriage, of course; but if you found a sensible agreeable woman of thirty or so, I really think you couldn’t do better than take her to manage your home, and so save you either discomfort or worry; and, besides, she would be able to give your daughter that kind of tender supervision which, I fancy, all girls of that age require.  It’s a delicate subject, but you’ll excuse my having spoken frankly.’

Mr. Gibson had thought of this advice several times since it was given; but it was a case of ‘first catch your hare.’  Where was the ’sensible and agreeable woman of thirty or so?’ Not Miss Browning, nor Miss Phoebe, nor Miss Goodenough.  Among his country patients there were two classes pretty distinctly marked:  farmers, whose children were unrefined and uneducated; squires, whose daughters would, indeed think the world was coming to a pretty pass, if they were to marry a country surgeon.