Here Dr Thorne lived for eleven or twelve years, all alone; and then
for ten or eleven more with his niece, Mary Thorne. Mary was thirteen
when she came to take up permanent abode as mistress of the
establishment--or, at any rate, to act as the only mistress which the
establishment possessed. This advent greatly changed the tenor of the
doctor's ways. He had been before pure bachelor; not a room in his
house had been comfortably furnished; he at first commenced in a
makeshift sort of way, because he had not at his command the means of
commencing otherwise; and he had gone on in the same fashion, because
the exact time had never come at which it was imperative in him to set
his house in order. He had had no fixed hour for his meals, no fixed
place for his books, no fixed wardrobe for his clothes. He had a few
bottles of good wine in his cellar, and occasionally asked a brother
bachelor to take a chop with him; but beyond this he had touched very
little on the cares of housekeeping. A slop-bowl full of strong tea,
together with bread, and butter, and eggs, was produced for him in the
morning, and he expected that at whatever hour he might arrive in the
evening, some food should be presented to him wherewith to satisfy the
cravings of nature; if, in addition to this, he had another slop-bowl
of tea in the evening, he got all that he ever required, or all, at
least, that he ever demanded.

But when Mary came, or rather, when she was about to come, things were
altogether changed at the doctor's. People had hitherto wondered--and
especially Mrs Umbleby--how a gentleman like Dr Thorne could continue
to live in so slovenly a manner; and how people again wondered, and
again especially Mrs Umbleby, how the doctor could possibly think it
necessary to put such a lot of furniture into a house because a little
chit of a girl of twelve years was coming to live with him.