"My good fellow," the sensible little baronet answered, "there are only about ten families in England that can put their pedigree by the side of the Merediths, and it don't seem to me to make much difference, if you rise from the ranks yourself, or if your father or grandfather did it."
"I can scarcely claim even to be a gentleman," the young man went on, feeling pretty sure of success by that time.
"Not another word, my dear boy; not another word! I respect your candor, and I esteem you very highly as an honest man—-the noblest work of God, you know, eh?—though I'd like to hear any one say that you were not a gentleman as well. There, go along! shake hands! God bless you! You'll find Violet in the drawing-room. Sly little puss! but I saw what was coming—and mind you dine with us this evening at seven sharp—old-fashioned folk, old-fashioned hours."
I think the wary old baronet also respected Dr. Carter's income, and esteemed very highly his success, and having weighed the advantages of family and birth against success and income, had found that the latter were the more substantial in the worldly scales.
And so Dr. Carter was dreaming rosy dreams that evening in his quiet room, as was fit and proper after two days' wandering in fairyland with Violet Meredith. But as the scent of the violets had led him to think of the giver, so it drew his thoughts away from her again back to springtime many years ago at Sunnybrook, and the bank where the earliest violets grew in the sheltered lane leading to the Croft farm. Did ever violets smell so sweet as those? He remembered one afternoon, after school, going to fetch the milk from the farm, and the scent luring him across the little runlet by the side of the path, which was swollen into a small, brawling brook by the lately thawed snow. He set down the can safely before he made the venture; and Dr. Carter laughed softly to himself to think how short and fat the legs were that found the little stream such a mighty stride. He was busy diving for the flowers among the layers of dead elm leaves, which the blustering autumn winds had blown there, when a sound behind him caused him to look round and there was the can upset, and the young fox-hound quartered at the Croft licking up the white pool from the pebbles. In his anger and fear and haste, he slipped as he tried to jump back, and went full-length into the stream, and scrambled out in a sad plight, and went home crying bitterly, with a very wet pinafore, and dirty face, and empty milk can, with the cause of his mishap, the sweet violets, still clasped unconsciously in his little scratched hand. And his mother—ah! she was always a good mother! He could remember still the comforting feeling of mother's apron wiping away dirt and tears, and the sound of her voice bidding him "Never mind! and hush up like a good little Laddie." His heart felt very warm just then toward that mother of his; and he made up his mind that, cost what trouble it might, he would go down and see her before he was married, if it were only for an hour or two, just to make sure that she was comfortable and not working about and wearing herself out. His conscience pricked him a little at the thought of what a pleasure the sight of him would have been to the old woman, and how year after year had slipped away without his going down. But still a comforting voice told him that he had been substantially a good son, and it was accident and not intention that had kept him away. "Anyhow," he said to himself, "another month shall not pass without my seeing my mother."
At this moment the deferential man knocked at the door and aroused Dr. Carter to the consciousness of how far his wandering thoughts had carried him from his consulting room and Medical Review.
"What is it, Hyder?"
"Please, sir, there's some one wishes to see you. I told her it was too late, and you was engaged very particular, but she wouldn't be put off nohow, sir."
"What is her name?"
There was a slight smile disturbing the usually unruffled serenity of Mr. Hyder's face, as if he had a lingering remembrance of something amusing.