Excerpt from Dr. North and His Friends We of course discussed among ourselves this change of residence, which seemed to us to involve so much, but soon ceased to criticize, being sure that our friend must, as usual, have competent reasons for so great an alteration in his mode of life. Moreover, we were not given to that excess of gossip about friends or relatives which is common. Vincent especially dis liked such debates. We decided that, at all events, Clayborne's change of home must not be allowed to lessen the freedom of relation which had come to mean so much for all concerned. And yet as some of us were very busy people, Clayborne's move did at times render inconvenient the claim he never ceased to make on the men and women who were dear to him. St. Clair had just before this time returned from wandering in the East Indies. Nothing unusual in the lives of men surprised him. He laughed when he heard of Clayborne's change of residence, and said it was well, and that perhaps now he would learn to tell a pine from a hemlock; and did Mrs. Vincent know why he had chosen the country, for which he had a frequently declared want of taste? Mrs. Vincent shook her head at this, and declined to express an Opinion. She knew no more than we, but had a well-understood weakness as to being sup posed to know more of Clayborne than the rest of us. This was at times a source of annoyance to my wife. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.