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XXIV. A Barouche and Four Arrives at Greshamsbury XXXV. Sir Louis Goes Out to Dinner XXXVI. Will He Come Again? XXXVII. Sir Louis Leaves Greshamsbury XXXVIII. De Courcy Precepts and de Courcy Practice XXXIX. What the World Says about Blood XL. The Two Doctors Change Patients XLI. Doctor Thorne Won't Interfere XLII. What Can You Give in Return? XLIII. The Race of Scatcherd Becomes Extinct XLIV. Saturday Evening and Sunday Morning XLV. Law Business in London XLVI. Our Pet Fox Finds a Tail XLVII. How the Bride Was Received, and Who Were Asked to the Wedding
CHAPTER I
The Greshams of Greshamsbury
Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.
There is a county in the west of England not so full of life, indeed, nor so widely spoken of as some of its manufacturing leviathan brethren in the north, but which is, nevertheless, very dear to those who know it well. Its green pastures, its waving wheat, its deep and shady and--let us add--dirty lanes, its paths and stiles, its tawny-coloured, well-built rural churches, its avenues of beeches, and frequent Tudor mansions, its constant county hunt, its social graces, and the general air of clanship which pervades it, has made it to its own inhabitants a favoured land of Goshen. It is purely agricultural; agricultural in its produce, agricultural in its poor, and agricultural in its pleasures. There are towns in it, of course; dépôts from whence are brought seeds and groceries, ribbons and fire-shovels; in which markets are held and county balls are carried on; which return members to Parliament, generally--in spite of Reform Bills, past, present, and coming--in accordance with the dictates of some neighbouring land magnate: from whence emanate t