'Yes, yes; Wilfred Thorne, of Ullathorne, and our friend the squire here, are of the same class.'
'But, uncle, I and Augusta Gresham—are we of the same class?'
'Well, Minnie, you would hardly have me boast that I am of the same class with the squire—I, a poor country doctor?'
'You are not answering me fairly, dear uncle; dearest uncle, do you not know that you are not answering me fairly? You know what I mean. Have I a right to call the Thornes of Ullathorne my cousins?'
'Mary, Mary, Mary!' said he, after a minute's pause, still allowing his arm to hang loose, that she might hold it with both her hands. 'Mary, Mary, Mary! I would that you had spared me this!'
'I could not have spared it to you for ever, uncle.'
'I would that you could have done so; I would that you could!'
'It is over now, uncle: it is told now; I will grieve you no more. Dear, dear, dearest! I should love you more than ever now; I would, I would, I would if that were possible. What should I be but for you? What must I have been but for you?' And she threw herself on his breast, and clinging with her arms round his neck, kissed his forehead, cheeks, and lips.
There was nothing more then said on the subject between them. Mary asked no further question, nor did the doctor volunteer further information. She would have been most anxious to ask about her mother's history had she dared to do so; but she did not dare to ask; she could not bear to be told that her mother had been, perhaps was, a worthless woman. That she was truly a daughter of a brother of the doctor, that she did know. Little as she had heard of her relatives in her early youth, few as had been the words which had fallen from her uncle in her hearing as to her parentage, she did know this, that she was the daughter of Henry Thorne, a brother of the doctor and a son of the old prebendary. Trifling little things that had occurred, accidents which could not be prevented, had told her this; but not a word had ever passed any one's lips as to her mother. The doctor, when speaking of his youth, had spoken of her father; but no one had spoken of her mother. She had long known that she was a child of a Thorne; now she knew also that she was no cousin of the Thornes of Ullathorne; no cousin, at least, in the world's ordinary language, no niece indeed of her uncle, unless by his special permission that she should be so.
When the interview was over, she went up alone to the drawing-room, and there she sat thinking. She had not been there long before her uncle came up to her. He did not sit down,
