Do you, however, see to this.

I would rather that no one else should be told." No one else had been told; and the squire had "seen to it," by accustoming himself to look at Mary Thorne running about the house with his own children as though she were of the same brood.

Indeed, the squire had always been fond of Mary, had personally noticed her, and, in the affair of Mam'selle Larron, had declared that he would have her placed at once on the bench of magistrates;--much to the disgust of the Lady Arabella.
And so things had gone on and on, and had not been thought of with much downright thinking; till now, when she was one-and-twenty years of age, his niece came to him, asking as to her position, and inquiring in what rank of life she was to look for a husband.
And so the doctor walked backwards and forwards through the garden, slowly, thinking now with some earnestness what if, after all, he had been wrong about his niece?
What if by endeavouring to place her in the position of a lady, he had falsely so placed her, and robbed her of all legitimate position?
What if there was no rank of life to which she could now properly attach herself?
And then, how had it answered, that plan of his of keeping her all to himself?
He, Dr Thorne, was still a poor man; the gift of saving money had not been his; he had ever had a comfortable house for her to live in, and, in spite of Doctors Fillgrave, Century, Rerechild, and others, had made from his profession an income sufficient for their joint wants; but he had not done as others do: he had no three or four thousand pounds in the Three per Cents.

on which Mary might live in some comfort when he should die.

Late in life he had insured his life for eight hundred pounds; and to that, and that only, had he to trust for Mary's future maintenance.