surmising, the cruel slander against her--should meet no cold contemptuous
looks, above all, should be safe from the barbed talk of Mrs. Poyntz--that
I insisted on the necessity of immediate change of air and scene. I
proposed that we should all three depart, the next day, for the banks of
my own beloved and native Windermere. By that pure mountain air, Lilian's
health would be soon re-established; in the church hallowed to me by the
graves of my fathers our vows should be plighted. No calumny had ever
cast a shadow over those graves. I felt as if my bride would be safer in
the neighbourhood of my mother's tomb.

I carried my point: it was so arranged. Mrs. Ashleigh, however, was
reluctant to leave before she had seen her dear friend, Margaret Poyntz.
I had not the courage to tell her what she might expect to hear from that
dear friend, but, as delicately as I could, I informed her that I had
already seen the Queen of the Hill, and contradicted the gossip that had
reached her; but that as yet, like other absolute sovereigns, the Queen of
the Hill thought it politic to go with the popular stream, reserving all
check on its direction till the rush of its torrent might slacken; and
that it would be infinitely wiser in Mrs. Ashleigh to postpone
conversation with Mrs. Poyntz until Lilian's return to L---- as my wife.
Slander by that time would have wearied itself out, and Mrs. Poyntz
(assuming her friendship to Mrs. Ashleigh to be sincere) would then be
enabled to say with authority to her subjects, "Dr. Fenwick alone knows
the facts of the story, and his marriage with Miss Ashleigh refutes all
the gossip to her prejudice."

I made that evening arrangements with a young and rising practitioner to
secure attendance on my patients during my absence. I passed the greater
part of the night in drawing up memoranda to guide my proxy in each case,
however humble the sufferer. This task finished, I chanced, in searching