The Doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the
purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry
meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle
imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed
for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles,
and were always undeceived - always!

But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace, and her
sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much
constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the
contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger
and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake - sorry for
them both - that life should be such a very ridiculous business as
it was.

The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or
either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one.
But then he was a Philosopher.

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over
that common Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than
the object of the alchemist's researches), which sometimes trips up
kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold
to dross and every precious thing to poor account.

'Britain!' cried the Doctor. 'Britain! Holloa!'

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged
from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious
acknowledgment of 'Now then!'