"Yes. When you refused, there was nobody left to take it but Sol Shankland."
"What has become of him?" asked the lawyer.
"General inanity, I suspect, though he says, 'neümonyer,' as he calls it."
"In that case," Putnam said, laughing, "he might furnish the funds."
"But you'll come to rehearsal to-morrow night?" Sanford asked, fumbling in his pocket for a play-book. "It's at our house at half-past seven."
"If your sister has issued her commands, I suppose I've nothing to do but to obey."
The fact was, that the lawyer repented his former refusal, since it shut him out of the rehearsals at which Patty necessarily spent most of her evenings; and he was glad circumstances had put it into his power to retrieve his error. He found himself daily longing more and more to be near her, and yet shut more completely from her presence. He walked on towards his office with a brisker step, and neglected his business to commit the senseless lines of the part assigned to him.
About the time that Will was so unscrupulously using his sister's name to insnare the lawyer, that young lady was having a somewhat spicy interview with her mother. From the day when young Toxteth had confided to Mrs. Sanford his intentions in regard to Patty, the shallow woman had gone about with the secret locked in her bosom like a vase of perfume, whose subtile odors pervaded every corner of her brain-chambers. Her head unconsciously took a new elevation, and her step a fresh dignity. The Sanfords were independent and comfortable. Dr. Sanford's practice was good, and rather more lucrative than is usual in country-towns. With Will's education, however, and Patty's books and music-teachers to provide for, the surplus at the end of the year was small; and Mrs. Sanford never ceased to sigh for the time when, the son being established in his profession, and the daughter married, her husband could begin to accumulate property.
"Daughter Britann," grandmother would say, "thy mind is overmuch set on this world's goods. The Sanfords are never rich, unless thee shouldst reckon the wealth of brains; and thou hast already sufficient for all thy needs."
"So have you, mother," Mrs. Sanford one day retorted; "but I notice you are just as anxious about your pension, for all that."