A period of many years had passed since she had last so honoured that abode.

Mary, indeed, had been so much one of her own family that the ceremony of calling on her had never been thought necessary; and thus, unless Mary had been absolutely ill, there would have been nothing to bring her ladyship to the house.

All this she knew would add to the importance of the occasion, and she judged it prudent to make the occasion as important as it might well be.
She was so far successful that she soon found herself _tete-a-tete_ with the doctor in his own study.

She was no whit dismayed by the pair of human thigh-bones which lay close to his hand, and which, when he was talking in that den of his own, he was in the constant habit of handling with much energy; nor was she frightened out of her propriety even by the little child's skull which grinned at her from off the chimney-piece.
"Doctor," she said, as soon as the first complimentary greetings were over, speaking in her kindest and most would-be-confidential tone, "Doctor, I am still uneasy about that boy of mine, and I have thought it best to come and see you at once, and tell you freely what I think." The doctor bowed, and said that he was very sorry that she should have any cause for uneasiness about his young friend Frank.
"Indeed, I am very uneasy, doctor; and having, as I do have, such reliance on your prudence, and such perfect confidence in your friendship, I have thought it best to come and speak to you openly:" thereupon the Lady Arabella paused, and the doctor bowed again.
"Nobody knows so well as you do the dreadful state of the squire's affairs." "Not so very dreadful; not so very dreadful," said the doctor, mildly: "that is, as far as I know." "Yes they are, doctor; very dreadful; very dreadful indeed.

You know how much he owes to this young man: I do not, for the squire never tells anything to me; but I know that it is a very large sum of money; enough to swamp the estate and ruin Frank.