She soon found that his manner was more than ordinarily kind to her; and there was moreover something about him which seemed to make him sparkle with contentment, but he said no word about Frank, nor did he make any allusion to the business which had taken him up to town.
"Have you got through all your work?" she said to him once.
"Yes, yes; I think all."
"And thoroughly?"
"Yes; thoroughly, I think. But I am very tired, and so are you too, darling, with waiting for me."
"Oh, no, I am not," said she, as she went on continually filling his cup; "but I am so happy to have you home again. You have been away so much lately."
"Ah, yes; well I suppose I shall not go away any more now. It will be somebody else's turn now."
"Uncle, I think you're going to take up writing mystery romances, like Mrs Radcliffe's."
"Yes; and I'll begin to-morrow, certainly with— But, Mary, I will not say another word to-night. Give me a kiss, dearest, and I'll go."
Mary did kiss him, and he did go. But as she was still lingering in the room, putting away a book, or a reel of thread, and then sitting down to think what the morrow would bring forth, the doctor again came into the room in his dressing-gown, and with the slippers on.