When there happened to be no company at the castle the young ladies felt it decidedly dull. It was true they had no end of china, old and new, foreign and of home manufacture; they had a gallery of paintings worth--it is better not to say how much--but the work of old masters and new, besides ancestors looking at them from every wall; they had drawing-rooms swarming with every unnecessary of life; they had the spacious and lofty hall with armor and swords and spears and shields, "all useful," as an auctioneer would say--"all useful, gentlemen, for decorative purposes"--with trophies of the chase in its milder home forms and as carried on in African or Bengal jungles; they had a library filled from floor to ceiling with books containing, it is to be presumed, the life-blood of master spirits, but they did not often tap the vessels. The earl himself valued his library, but he was not a reading man either. In short, they were in the unhappy position of living in Birns Castle and having nothing to be astonished at. II. At one end of the Birns village stood a house, small, not comparatively, but positively--a house out of which you could emerge and be astonished--if you were young or had anything of the genius which is always young--at Birns Castle, which is greatly to be preferred to living in Birns Castle and having nothing to be astonished at, as has been remarked by a high authority in connection with another castle. There was no dullness in this house, although only four people lived in it, but they were all busy always. It was surrounded by a wall which enclosed not only the house, but a garden, a miniature courtyard and a stable: the premises were small, but complete and compact, and the owners were very well pleased with them. On the gate leading to the house was a brass plate with the name "Dr. Brunton" on it. He was the doctor of the place, and had only recently settled in it: he was young and enthusiastic. If a man wants to spend and to be spent in doing good, he has every opportunity as a country doctor, but if he wants to make money, he has no opportunity at all. However, people who are young and enthusiastic don't think much about money, and Dr. Brunton did not, nor did his sister, who lived with him and attended to affairs in-doors. They had one female servant and a man for the stable and garden. They were very happy, this brother and sister--happy to be together, for they had no very near relations, and they suited each other well; and happy because they had not been accustomed to great things, and were not ambitious. Of matrimony neither of them had ever thought, at least on their own account, or if they had it was as a possible thing in the far distance. Happy, busy, satisfied people don't readily think of change, and certainly they don't seek for it; but it may come to them from very unexpected quarters.