The grey eyes of Miss Bardon lighted up with irrepressible pleasure, and even the gruff old doctor uttered a rather complacent grunt.
“She begged,” said Mabel, “that you would drive over some morning and take luncheon, and let her show you over the garden and park.”
“Then she’s not changed, dear creature!” exclaimed Cecilia.
“And she hopes before long,” continued Mabel, “to find herself again at Milton Cottage.”
“Mill Cottage,” said the doctor gruffly; for the name of his tenement had for many years been a disputed subject between him and his daughter Cecilia;—“there’s common sense in that name: Mill Cottage, because it was once connected with a mill. To turn it into ‘Milton’ is pure nonsense and affectation. A fine title would hang about as well on this place as knee-buckles and ruff on a ploughman!” And having thus given his oracular opinion, Dr. Bardon strolled out into his garden, leaving the young ladies to pursue uninterrupted conversation together, none the less agreeable for his absence.
“You will excuse papa,” said Cecilia, feeling that some apology was required for her father’s abrupt departure.
Dr. Bardon’s manner was far rougher and less courteous than it would have been had he appeared as the lord of Nettleby Tower, instead of a poor surgeon with indifferent practice. Whether it were that he was soured by disappointment, or that his pride shrank from the idea of appearing to cringe to those more favoured by fortune than himself, it would be perhaps difficult to determine; he appeared to consider that true dignity consisted in despising those outward advantages which he would probably have overvalued had he himself possessed them. Thus, while Cecilia’s pride led her to make the best possible appearance, and catch any reflected gleam of grandeur from opulent or titled acquaintance, Dr. Bardon rather gloried in the meanness of his home, never cared to hide the patch upon his coat, and considered himself equal in his poverty to any peer who wore the garter and the George.
The doctor appeared to have walked off his ill-humour, for when Ida and Mabel bade adieu to Miss Bardon, they found him ready to escort them to his gate. With not ungraceful courtesy he presented the young ladies with a nosegay of his choicest hyacinths, and even condescended to say that he valued their present for the sake of the fair hands that had worked it! There was something of the “fine old English gentleman” lingering yet about the disinherited man.