Mr. Denison was a man who had never laid himself out for personal popularity, and of late years he had been very little seen abroad. Still the neighbourhood felt that he was one of them. For forty years he had made his home at Heron Dyke, not spending half his time in London or in foreign countries, as so many other great people did, and they would have been sorry to see his place usurped by a strange branch of the family of whom nobody knew anything, except that the head of it was said to be a half-demented gentleman who had much more of the furniture broker about him than the county magnate. Should Squire Denison live through to-day, all he might die possessed of would go to his niece Miss Winter, a young lady beloved by all, rich and poor, and one quite worthy to be the Hall's mistress. There was one inhabitant of Nullington, however, who did not feel quite so elated as the rest. He was too much puzzled for that. It was Dr. Spreckley. He stood at his window in the morning sun, listening to the cheery bells. Mr. Denison had lived to see his coveted birthday, and the bells were ringing for it; but Dr. Spreckley felt as if he were in a fog, and should never distinguish anything clearly in medical practice again. Knowing Mr. Denison's constitution so thoroughly, and the malady he had been long suffering from, he did not see how it was _possible_ for him to be still alive. Night and day of late had the good physician brooded over the mystery. For to him it seemed a mystery; but a mystery beyond his comprehension. So far as his own skill and experience went, and that of eminent authorities in London to whom he wrote minutely of the case, it had seemed to him not only improbable but impossible that Gilbert Denison could have lasted to see Christmas. Yet here he was alive, and, as reported from Heron Dyke, fairly well, on the twenty-fourth of April! Dr. Spreckley was yet at his window when his successful rival practitioner, Dr. Jago, came driving past in his gig, a high-stepping mare in the shafts, which he had recently bought. He was on his way to Heron Dyke, and he was going this morning half an hour earlier than usual. In honour of the occasion, he had dressed himself in a new suit of black, with a white cravat and a fashionable overcoat. He glanced up at the window as he passed, and Dr. Spreckley felt sure that there was a smile of insolent triumph on his face which he now did not conceal. As Spreckley turned away, his heart was very bitter within him.