Lucretia; by her second marriage, another daughter, named Susan. She
survived somewhat more than a year the birth of the latter. On her
death, Sir Miles formally (through his agent) applied to Dr. Mivers for
his eldest niece, Lucretia Clavering, and the physician did not think
himself justified in withholding from her the probable advantages of a
transfer from his own roof to that of her wealthy uncle. He himself had
been no worldly gainer by his connection; his practice had suffered
materially from the sympathy which was felt by the county families for
the supposed wrongs of Sir Miles St. John, who was personally not only
popular, but esteemed, nor less so on account of his pride,--too
dignified to refer even to his domestic annoyances, except to his most
familiar associates; to them, indeed, Sir Miles had said, briefly, that
he considered a physician who abused his entrance into a noble family by
stealing into its alliance was a character in whose punishment all
society had an interest. The words were repeated; they were thought just.
Those who ventured to suggest that Mrs. Clavering, as a widow, was a free
agent, were regarded with suspicion. It was the time when French
principles were just beginning to be held in horror, especially in the
provinces, and when everything that encroached upon the rights and
prejudices of the high born was called "a French principle." Dr. Mivers
was as much scouted as if he had been a sans-culotte. Obliged to quit
the county, he settled at a distance; but he had a career to commence
again; his wife's death enfeebled his spirits and damped his exertions.
He did little more than earn a bare subsistence, and died at last, when
his only daughter was fourteen, poor and embarrassed On his death-bed he
wrote a letter to Sir Miles reminding him that, after all, Susan was his
sister's child, gently vindicating himself from the unmerited charge of
treachery, which had blasted his fortunes and left his orphan penniless,
and closing with a touching yet a manly appeal to the sole relative left
to befriend her. The clergyman who had attended him in his dying moments