But Mr. Vigors was convinced, from other sources of information (meaning,
I presume, the oracular prescience of his clairvoyants), that the time
would come when the poor young lady would herself insist on discarding Dr.
Fenwick, and when "that person" would appear in a very different light to
many who now so fondly admired and so reverentially trusted him. When
that time arrived, he, Mr. Vigors, might again be of use; but, meanwhile,
though he declined to renew his intimacy at Abbots' House, or to pay
unavailing visits of mere ceremony, his interest in the daughter of his
old friend remained undiminished, nay, was rather increased by compassion;
that he should silently keep his eye upon her; and whenever anything to
her advantage suggested itself to him, he should not be deterred by the
slight with which Mrs. Ashleigh had treated his judgment from calling on
her, and placing before her conscience as a mother his ideas for her
child's benefit, leaving to herself then, as now, the entire
responsibility of rejecting the advice which he might say, without vanity,
was deemed of some value by those who could distinguish between sterling
qualities and specious pretences.

Mrs. Ashleigh's was that thoroughly womanly nature which instinctively
leans upon others. She was diffident, trustful, meek, affectionate. Not
quite justly had Mrs. Poyntz described her as "commonplace weak," for
though she might be called weak, it was not because she was commonplace;
she had a goodness of heart, a sweetness of disposition, to which that
disparaging definition could not apply. She could only be called
commonplace inasmuch as in the ordinary daily affairs of life she had a
great deal of ordinary daily commonplace good-sense. Give her a routine
to follow, and no routine could be better adhered to. In the allotted
sphere of a woman's duties she never seemed in fault. No household, not
even Mrs. Poyntz's, was more happily managed. The old Abbots' House had
merged its original antique gloom in the softer character of pleasing