“Do you know who Mr. Mannering’s friends are?” cried Dr. Roland. “Little Dora, his only child! I know no others. Just about as little influential as are those moral causes you scorn, but I don’t.” “Indeed!” said Dr. Vereker, with more consideration of this last statement. Little Dora was not much of a person to look to for the rapidly accumulating fees of a celebrated doctor during a long illness. But though he was a prudent man, he was not mercenary; perhaps he would have hesitated about taking up the case had he known at first, but he was not the man to retire now out of any fear of being paid. “Mr. Mannering is a person of distinction,” he said, in a self-reassuring tone; “he has been my patient at long intervals for many years. I don’t think we require to go into the question further at this moment.” He withdrew with great dignity to the carriage that awaited him, crossing one or two of Dr. Roland’s patients, whose appearance somewhat changed his idea of the little practitioner who had thus ventured to assail him; while, on the other hand, Roland for his part was mollified by the other’s magnanimous reception of a statement which seemed to make his fees uncertain. Dr. Vereker was not in the least a mercenary man, he would never have overwhelmed an orphan girl with a great bill: at the same time, it did float across his mind that if the crisis were once over which professional spirit and honour compelled him to conduct to a good end if possible, a little carelessness about his visits after could have no bad result, considering the constant vicinity of that very keen-eyed practitioner downstairs.