"Oh no. Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock; but they
are not carried on by me."

"What--another student in that retreat?"

"There is a surgeon lately come, and I have heard that he reads a
great deal--I see his light sometimes through the trees late at
night."

"Oh yes--a doctor--I believe I was told of him. It is a strange
place for him to settle in."

"It is a convenient centre for a practice, they say. But he does
not confine his studies to medicine, it seems. He investigates
theology and metaphysics and all sorts of subjects."

"What is his name?"

"Fitzpiers. He represents a very old family, I believe, the
Fitzpierses of Buckbury-Fitzpiers--not a great many miles from
here."

"I am not sufficiently local to know the history of the family. I
was never in the county till my husband brought me here." Mrs.
Charmond did not care to pursue this line of investigation.
Whatever mysterious merit might attach to family antiquity, it was
one which, though she herself could claim it, her adaptable,
wandering weltburgerliche nature had grown tired of caring about--
a peculiarity that made her a contrast to her neighbors. "It is