Mrs Umbleby had great scope for her wonder. The doctor made a thorough
revolution in his household, and furnished his house from the ground to
the roof completely. He painted--for the first time since the
commencement of his tenancy--he papered, he carpeted, as though a Mrs
Thorne with a good fortune were coming home to-morrow; and all for a
girl of twelve years old. 'And now,' said Mrs Umbleby, to her friend
Miss Gushing, 'how did he find out what to buy?' as though the doctor
had been brought up like a wild beast, ignorant of the nature of tables
and chairs, and with no more developed ideas of drawing-room drapery
than an hippopotamus.

To the utter amazement of Mrs Umbleby and Miss Gushing, the doctor did
it very well. He said nothing about it to any one--he never did say
much about such things--but he furnished his house well and discreetly;
and when Mary Thorne came home from her school at Bath, to which she
had been taken some six years previously, she found herself called upon
to be the presiding genius of a perfect paradise.

It has been said that the doctor had managed to endear himself to the
new squire before the old squire's death, and that, therefore, the
change at Greshamsbury had had no professional ill effects upon him.
Such was the case at the time; but, nevertheless, all did not go
smoothly in the Greshamsbury medical department. There was six or
seven years' difference in age between Mr Gresham and the doctor, and
moreover, Mr Gresham was young for his age, and the doctor old; but,
nevertheless, there was a very close attachment between them early in
life. This was never thoroughly sundered, and, backed by this the
doctor did maintain himself for some years before the artillery of Lady
Arabella's artillery. But drops falling, if they fall constantly, will
bore through a stone.