As he went home he could not but think that that phase of married life was not a very pleasant one. Mr. Gresham and his wife were supposed by the world to live on the best of terms. They always inhabited the same house, went out together when they did go out, always sat in their respective corners in the family pew, and in their wildest dreams after the happiness of novelty never thought of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. In some respects—with regard, for instance, to the continued duration of their joint domesticity at the family mansion of Greshamsbury—they might have been taken for a pattern couple. But yet, as far as the doctor could see, they did not seem to add much to the happiness of each other. They loved each other, doubtless, and had either of them been in real danger, that danger would have made the other miserable; but yet it might well be a question whether either would not be more comfortable without the other. The doctor, as was his custom, dined at five, and at seven he went up to the cottage of his old friend Lady Scatcherd. Lady Scatcherd was not a refined woman, having in her early days been a labourer’s daughter and having then married a labourer. But her husband had risen in the world—as has been told in those chronicles before mentioned,—and his widow was now Lady Scatcherd with a pretty cottage and a good jointure. She was in all things the very opposite to Lady Arabella Gresham; nevertheless, under the doctor’s auspices, the two ladies were in some measure acquainted with each other. Of her married life, also, Dr. Thorne had seen something, and it may be questioned whether the memory of that was more alluring than the reality now existing at Greshamsbury. Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbour. “Well, my lady,” he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden seat—all the world called Lady Scatcherd “my lady,”—“and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house.” “You may well call them long, doctor. They’re long enough surely.” “But not too long. Come, now, I won’t have you complaining. You don’t mean to tell me that you have anything to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won’t believe you.” “Eh; well; wretched! I don’t know as I’m wretched. It’d be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me.” “I think it would, almost.” The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke. “And I didn’t mean to be wicked. I’m very thankful for everything—leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like.” “Lonely! not more lonely than I am.”