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THE

YOUNG DOCTOR.

A Nobel

BY THB AUTHOR OF

"LADY GRANARD'S NIECES," "SIR ARTHUR

BOUVERIE," &c.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II I.

LONDON:

T. C. NEWBY, PUBLISHER

WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.

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THE YOUNG DOCTOR.

CHAPTER I.

Strength is born

In the deep silence of long suffering hearts,

Not amidst joy!

Mrs. Hemans.

THERE are often periods in the lives of many people, the minute records of which would prove dull and uninteresting to the general reader if detailed, and therefore it is only needful that their leading events should be summed up for his apprehension. The reader then of this tale will certainly be relieved from perusing many a dull page if the several histories of the parties concerned in it, are suffered to be thus briefly noticed

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till the chains of their every-day occurrences again become broken by incidents rather inclining to the domains of fiction. Of fiction, did I say? but ruin, failure, and misery are common-place occurrences, it is the onward course of true prosperity which is the fiction of real life, and therefore the vicissitudes of the Fielding family, the poverty and privations they had to endure about a year after the events related in the last volume, were, after all, not more singular than the striking alterations that often take place in our friends' circumstances, and which we scarcely notice with an exclamation of surprise.

Yet they are grievous to the actual sufferers; keenly did the Fieldings feel their change of fortune, brought on as it had been by the unwise speculations of Mr. Fielding, who, against the advice of many a true friend, had established a colliery on some estate of his in Wales, and had squandered away the greater part of his property in so doing. When this project was first

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set on foot, people wondered how so cautious a man as he should embark in so hazardous a speculation; but many cautious men are rash enough at times in executing projects which they themselves have formed, and thus it was with Mr. Fielding. One person alone seemed to think that he could not be deceived as to the ultimate success of the undertaking, and from various representations on his part, sunk a considerable portion of his own property in the same project, and this was Mr. Winkelmann. The little man, perhaps, wanted some occupation to employ his time and his thoughts, as he had given up his profession, and had retired to a pretty small estate that he possessed in Berkshire.

But the colliery proved as unsuccessful as the most dismal prophets expected it would; Mr. Fielding soon found that he could not benefit by the undertaking, unless a great capital were lavished upon it, for though the mineral was certainly on the land in large quantities, it could not be

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