entered her house, having fully resolved beforehand
on the line of policy to be adopted towards
the potentate whom I hoped to secure as an ally.
It was clear that neither disguise nor half-
confidence would baffle the penetration of so
keen an intellect, nor propitiate the good will of
so imperious and resolute a temper. Perfect
frankness here was the wisest prudence; and,
after all, it was most agreeable to my own
nature, and most worthy of my own honour.

Luckily, I found Mrs. Poyntz alone, and
taking in both mine the hand she somewhat
coldly extended to me, I said, with the
earnestness of suppressed emotion:

"You observed, when I last saw you, that I
had not yet asked you to be my friend. I ask
it now. Listen to me with all the indulgence
you can vouchsafe, and let me at least profit by
your counsel if you refuse to give me your aid."

Rapidly, briefly, I went on to say how I had
first seen Lilian, and how sudden, how strange
to myself had been the impression which that
first sight of her had produced.

"You remarked the change that had come
over me," said I; " you divined the cause before
I divined it myself; divined it as I sat there
beside you, thinking that through you I might
see, in the freedom of social intercourse, the face
that was then haunting me. You know what has
since passed. Miss Ashleigh is ill; her case is,
I am convinced, wholly misunderstood. All
other feelings are merged in one sense of
anxiety—of alarm. But it has become due to
me, due to all, to incur the risk of your ridicule
even more than of your reproof, by stating
to you thus candidly, plainly, bluntly, the
sentiment which renders alarm so poignant, and
which, if scarcely admissible to the romance
of some wild dreamy boy, may seem an
unpardonable folly in a man of my years and my
sober calling; due to me, to you, to Mrs.
Ashleigh; because still the dearest thing in
life to me is honour. And if you, who know
Mrs. Ashleigh so intimately, who must be more
or less aware of her plans or wishes for her
daughter's future; if you believe that those
plans or wishes lead to a lot far more ambitious
than an alliance with me could offer to Miss
Ashleigh, then aid Mr. Vigors in excluding me
from the house; aid me in suppressing a
presumptuous, visionary passion. I cannot enter
that house without love and hope at my heart.
And the threshold of that house I must not cross
if such love and such hope would be a sin and a
treachery in the eyes of its owner. I might restore
Miss Ashleigh to health; her gratitude might——
I cannot continue. This danger must not be
to me nor to her, if her mother has views far
above such a son-in-law. And I am the more
bound to consider all this while it is yet time,
because I heard you state that Miss Ashleigh had
a fortune—was what would be here termed an
heiress. And the full consciousness that
whatever fame one in my profession may live to
acquire, does not open those vistas of social
power and grandeur which are opened by
professions to my eyes less noble in themselves—
that full consciousness, I say, was forced upon
me by certain words of your own.  For the rest,
you know my descent is sufficiently recognised
as that amidst well-born gentry to have rendered
me no mésalliance to families the most proud of
their ancestry, if I had kept my hereditary estate
and avoided the career that makes me useful to
man. But I acknowledge that on entering a
profession such as mine—entering any profession
except that of arms or the senate—all leave their
pedigree at its door, an erased or dead letter. All
must come as equals, high born or low born,
into that arena in which men ask aid from a
man as he makes himself; to them his dead
forefathers are idle dust. Therefore, to the
advantage of birth I cease to have a claim. I am but
a provincial physician, whose station would be
the same had he been a cobbler's son. But gold
retains its grand privilege in all ranks. He who
has gold is removed from the suspicion that
attaches to the greedy fortune-hunter. My private
fortune, swelled by my savings, is sufficient to
secure to any one I married a larger settlement
than many a wealthy squire can make.
I need no fortune with a wife; if she have one,
it would be settled on herself. Pardon these
vulgar details. Now, have I made myself
understood?"

"Fully," answered the Queen of the Hill,
who had listened to me quietly, watchfully, and
without one interruption. "Fully. And you
have done well to confide in me with so generous
an unreserve. But before I say further, let me
ask, what would be your advice for Lilian, supposing
that you ought not to attend her. You
have no trust in Dr. Jones; neither have I. And
Anne Ashleigh's note received to-day, begging
me to call, justifies your alarm. Still you think
there is no tendency to consumption?"

"Of that I am certain, so far as my slight
glimpse of a case that to me, however, seems a
simple and not uncommon one, will permit. But
in tne alternative you put—that my own skill,
whatever its worth, is forbidden—my earnest
advice is, that Mrs. Ashleigh should take her
daughter at once to London, and consult there
those great authorities to whom I cannot
compare my own opinion or experience; and by
their counsel abide."

Mrs. Poyntz shaded her eyes with her hand
for a few moments, and seemed in deliberation
with herself.  Then she said, with her peculiar
smile, half grave, half ironical:

"In matters more ordinary you would have
won me to your side long ago. That Mr.
Vigors should have presumed to cancel my
recommendation to a settler on the Hill, was an
act of rebellion, and involved the honour of my
prerogative. But I suppressed my indignation
at an affront so unusual, partly out of pique
against yourself, but much more, I think, out of
regard for you."

"I understand. You detected the secret of my
heart; you knew that Mrs. Ashleigh would not
wish to see her daughter the wife of a provincial
physician."

"Am I sure, or are you sure, that the