So much did Lady Lufton do for her protege, and it may well be
imagined that the Devonshire physician, sitting meditative over his
parlour fire, looking back, as men will look back on the upshot of
their life, was well contented with that upshot, as regarded his
eldest offshoot, the Rev. Mark Robarts, the vicar of Framley.

But little has been said, personally, as to our hero himself, and
perhaps it may not be necessary to say much. Let us hope that by
degrees he may come forth upon the canvas, showing to the beholder
the nature of the man inwardly and outwardly. Here it may suffice
to say that he was not born heaven's cherub, neither was he born a
fallen devil's spirit. Such as his training made him, such he
was. He had large capabilities for good--and aptitude also for
evil, quite enough; quite enough to make it needful that he should
repel temptations as temptation only can be repelled. Much had
been done to spoil him, but in the ordinary acceptation of the word
he was not spoiled. He had too much tact, too much common sense,
to believe himself to be the paragon which his mother thought him.
Self-conceit was not, perhaps, his greatest danger. Had he
possessed more of it, he might have been a less agreeable man, but
his course before him might on that account have been the safer. In
person he was manly tall, and fair-haired, with a square forehead,
denoting intelligence rather than thought, with clear, white hands,
filbert nails, and a power of dressing himself in such a manner
that no one should ever observe of him that his clothes were either
good or bad, shabby or smart.

Such was Mark Robarts when at the age of twenty-five, or a little
more, he married Fanny Monsell. The marriage was celebrated in his