Framley Parsonage

Chapter 28

Dr. Thorne

When Miss Dunstable met her friends the Greshams--young Frank Gresham

and his wife--at Gatherum Castle, she immediately asked after one Dr.

Thorne, who was Mrs. Gresham's uncle. Dr. Thorne was an old bachelor,

in whom both as a man and a doctor Miss Dunstable was inclined to

place much confidence. Not that she had ever entrusted the cure of

her bodily ailments to Dr. Thorne--for she kept a doctor of her own,

Dr. Easyman, for this purpose--and it may moreover be said that she

rarely had bodily ailments requiring the care of any doctor. But she

always spoke of Dr. Thorne among her friends as a man of wonderful

erudition and judgement; and had once or twice asked and acted on his

advice in matters of much moment. Dr. Thorne was not a man accustomed

to the London world;