that she would have expected such results.

As it was, her poor weak darlings were carried about from London to
Brighton, from Brighton to some German baths, from the German baths
back to Torquay, and thence--as regarded the four we have named--to
that bourne from whence no further journey could be made under Lady
Arabella's directions.

The one son and heir to Greshamsbury was named as his father, Francis
Newbold Gresham. He would have been the hero of our tale had not that
place been pre-occupied by the village doctor. As it is, those who
please may regard him. It is he who is to be our favourite young man,
to do the love scenes, to have his trials and his difficulties, and to
win through them or not, as the case may be. I am too old now to be a
hard-hearted author, and so it is probable that he may not die of a
broken heart. Those who don't approve of a middle-aged bachelor
country doctor as a hero, may take the heir to Greshamsbury in his
stead, and call the book, if it so please them, 'The Loves and
Adventures of Francis Newbold Gresham the Younger.'

And Master Frank Gresham was not ill adapted for playing the part of a
hero of this sort. He did not share his sisters' ill-health, and
though the only boy of the family, he excelled all his sisters in
personal appearance. The Greshams from time immemorial had been
handsome. They were broad browed, blue-eyed, fair haired, born with
dimples in their chins, and that pleasant, aristocratic dangerous curl
of the upper lip which can equally express good humour or scorn. Young
Frank was every inch a Gresham, and was the darling of his father's
heart.