with paternal solicitude that the young man's first return to his
practice should be neither too soon for his own health or his
patients' fears; giving him no exhortation more earnest, nor more
thankfully accepted, than that he was to let no scruple prevent his
applying to himself in the slightest difficulty; calling him in to
pauper patients, and privately consulting in cases which could not be
visited gratis. The patronage of Henry Ward was one of the hobbies
that Dr. May specially loved, and he cantered off upon it with
vehemence such as he had hardly displayed for years.

Aubrey recovered with the tardiness of a weakly constitution, and was
long in even arriving at a drive in the brougham; for Dr. May had set
up a brougham. As long as Hector Ernescliffe's home was at
Stoneborough, driving the Doctor had been his privilege, and the old
gig had been held together by diligent repairs; but when Maplewood
claimed him, and Adams was laid aside by rheumatism, Flora would no
longer be silenced, and preached respectability and necessity. Dr.
May did not admit the plea, unless Adams were to sit inside and drive
out of window; but then he was told of the impropriety of his
daughters going out to dinner in gigs, and the expense of flies.
When Flora talked of propriety in that voice, the family might
protest and grumble, but were always reduced to obedience; and thus
Blanche's wedding had been the occasion of Ethel being put into a
hoop, and the Doctor into a brougham. He was better off under the
tyranny than she was, in spite of the solitude he had bewailed.
Young Adams was not the companion his father had been, and was no
loss; and he owned that he now got through a great deal of reading,
and at times a great deal of sleep; and mourned for nothing but his
moon and stars--so romantic a regret, that Dr. Spencer advised him
not to mention it.