“Mr. Coldstream no doubt looked very happy,” said the chaplain. “He has everything to make life bright.”
“He looked very much changed,” said the doctor,with a grave expression on his usually cheerful face. “Coldstream hardly seemed to be the same man as he who, in the wildest spirits, not a year ago, embarked in the ship bound for old England. Such a buoyant step was his, such a sparkling eye, as if the cup of joy awaiting him intoxicated him by anticipation! Certainly there is a difference now.”
“What kind of difference?” asked Mark Lawrence.
“The difference between a handsome lamp lighted, and the flame turned up high, and the same lamp turned down, almost extinguished. Oscar looked like his own elder brother—a grave, thoughtful man; not in the least like a jolly bridegroom.”
“Perhaps he was ill,” suggested the chaplain.
“He said not, for I asked him the question. Then the bonnie bride told me that Coldstream had been very ill just before his marriage, but that he had long ago recovered his health. I’ve my doubts about that—my doubts about that,” continued the doctor, slightly shaking his head in a professional way. “People don’t lose flesh and colour at Coldstream’s age if there’s nothing the matter. I should like to have asked some questions; found out the state of his—. But here we are at the house, and yonder’s a koi-hai to take in your card. I shall not waste my bit of pasteboard; none is needed when you call on a young lady who knows your name as well as her own. I shall be Io’s ‘Doctor Pinny’ to the end of the chapter.”
CHAPTER II.
THE PRODIGY.
The two visitors were conducted through a long veranda, paved with a delicate mosaic of many-coloured tiles, and overhung with blossoming creepers.
“Coldstream planted every one of these with his own hand,” observed the doctor, as his companion stopped for a moment to admire a specially magnificent creeper. “His lady-love always delighted in flowers. She used, when a child, to stick one into each of my button-holes; and would have hung daisy-chains round my neck, but that I was impatient of fetters, even when forged by pretty, plump, dimpled hands.” Dr. Pinfold’s face always wore a benevolent expression when he thought of the little godchild who had been dear to the old bachelor, and whose innocent affection had been his best tie to his fellow-creatures.