saw that child who came on the sands yesterday morning with a maid and an old black servant?”
“Well, what of him?”
“In the afternoon I saw her—the young lady—driving about with the same child,” returned Miss Miller. “I infer that they are people of consequence.”
“How can you infer it!” flashed Helen Vaughan, as if the remark disturbed her temper. “Every soul sojourning at Seaford drives out daily. You are turning silly, Mary Miller.”
Mary Miller laughed as she answered. In her quiet way she liked to excite the ire of Miss Vaughan. “The carriage was well-appointed.”
“You may get ‘well-appointed’ carriages at the hiring-place, by paying six shillings an hour for them,” was Miss Vaughan’s scornful answer.
“So you may,” said Mary Miller. “But the carriage they were in was not hired. The footman had a powdered wig and a gold-headed cane; and the silver plates of the harness and the panels of the carriage displayed a coronet.”
Had the speaker announced that the harness and panels displayed a live griffin rampant, it could not have aroused more excitement. “A coronet!” broke from the lips of those around.
“An earl’s coronet. So if she is an earl’s daughter, as we may assume, it would be somewhat infra dig. for her to be found dancing in these rooms, liable to be waltzed about by any clerk from London who may pay his subcription to go in—whatever you may say to the contrary, Miss Vaughan.”
“It is singular I should not have observed them last night,” was Miss Vaughan’s remark.
“They did not stay long,” said Fanny Darlington; “they seemed to come in more to see what the rooms were like than to stay. He went out with them, but he came back again. He appeared to know them intimately.”
“Some of his patients, no doubt,” cried Miss Lake. “Medical men are always———"
“Hush, Augusta! Here he is. Don’t ask who the people were.”
A tall, slender man was slowly approaching the group. Certainly he was what Miss———Vaughan had just described him—distinguished-looking. The thoughtful expression of his intelligent countenance, full of the beauty of intellect, gave him the appearance of being somewhat older than his age, which may have been near five-and-twenty. But it was neither for his fine form nor his handsome face that he was popular, popular with all classes; it was for his charm of manner. Quiet and refined, gentlemanly in bearing and in thought, he yet bore about him that ready frankness of speech, that winning courtesy to others, which is the great passport to favour, and which can never be assumed by those who possess it not.
Do you guess who it was? You have seen him before. It was that impetuous boy of years gone by, Frederick Grey. But Frederick Grey grown into manhood.
The change in the fortunes of Stephen Grey had been wonderful. At least it would have appeared wonderful, but that the rise had been so gradually progressive, one step leading easily, and naturally as it were, to another. Eight years ago, barely so much yet, he had been a general practitioner in South Wennock, the modest dispenser of his own medicines; and now he was Sir Stephen Grey, a baronet, and one of the royal physicians.
A wonderful rise, you will say. In truth it was. But the transition had been, I repeat, easy and gradual. His settling in London was the turning point in his fortunes, and they had continued to rise step by step throughout the subsequent years. Practice first flew in to him, and he obtained a name; how valuable that is to a physician, more especially a London physician, let them tell you; next, he had been appointed to attend on royalty, and was knighted by the Queen; and now, about twelve months back, his patent of baronetcy had been made out for “Stephen Grey and his heirs for ever.” There was scarcely a medical man in the metropolis who was so popular as Sir Stephen Grey; certainly none who had risen so rapidly.
Frederick, as you know, had been trained to his father’s profession. He would soon take his degree as M.D. A break had occurred in his medical studies, for when Sir Stephen found his fortunes rising, he judged it right to afford his son the advantages of a more liberal education, and Frederick was despatched to keep his terms at the Oxford University. No wonder he was sought after by those young ladies on the Seaford sands! The heir to a baronetcy and the inheritor of wealth—for Sir Stephen was putting by largely; added to these were his own attractions of person, his high character, his fascinating manners,—the whole combined in one man might well be deemed a prize.
Lady Grey, no stronger in health than she had used to be, had come to Seaford for the sea air, accompanied by her son. They had been there a fortnight now, and Mr. Frederick, as you perceive, had not failed to make