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416 talk once of Frank's marrying Miss Dunstable; did you mean to object to that match?'

'Miss Dunstable was legitimate; at least, I presume so.'

'Oh, Mr. Gresham! has it come to that? Miss Dunstable, then, would have satisfied your ideas of high birth?'

Mr. Gresham was rather posed, and regretted, at the moment, his allusion to Miss Dunstable's presumed legitimacy. But he soon recovered himself. 'No,' said he, 'it would not. And I am willing to admit, as I have admitted before, that the undoubted advantages arising from wealth are taken by the world as atoning for what would otherwise be a mésalliance. But—'

'You admit that, do you? You acknowledge that as your conviction on the subject?'

'Yes. But—' The squire was going on to explain the propriety of this opinion, but the doctor uncivilly would not hear him.

'Then, squire, I will not interfere in this matter in one way or the other.'

'How on earth can such an opinion—'

'Pray excuse me, Mr. Gresham; but my mind is now quite made up. It was very nearly so before. I will do nothing to encourage Frank, nor will I say anything to discourage Mary.'

'That is the most singular resolution that a man of sense like you ever came to.'

'I can't help it, squire; it is my resolution.'

'But what has Miss Dunstable's fortune to do with it?'

'I cannot say that it has anything; but, in this matter, I will not interfere.'

The squire went on for some time, but it was all to no purpose; and at last he left the house, considerably in dudgeon. The only conclusion to which he could come was, that Dr. Thorne had thought the chance on his niece's behalf too good to be thrown away, and had, therefore, resolved to act in this very singular way.

'I would not have believed it of him, though all Barsetshire had told me,' he said to himself as he entered the great gates; and he went on repeating the same words till he found himself in his own room. 'No, not if all Barsetshire had told me!'

He did not, however, communicate the ill result of his visit to the Lady Arabella.