The Girl at Cobhurst

by Frank R. Stockton

Dora looked out of the window as if she saw something in the garden, and
Mrs. Tolbridge charitably took her out to show her some new dahlias.

Early the next morning, Dr. Tolbridge drove into the Witton yard. No matter who waited for him, he would not delay this visit. When he asked for Miss Panney, he had a strong idea that the old lady would refuse to see him. But in an astonishingly short space of time, she marched into the parlor, every war-flag flying, and closed the door behind her.

Without shaking hands or offering the visitor any sort of salutation, she seated herself in a chair in the middle of the room. "Now," said she, "don't lose any time in saying what you have got to say."

Not encouraged by this reception, the doctor could not instantly arrange what he had to say. But he shortly got his ideas into order, and proceeded to lay the case in its most favorable light before the old lady, dwelling particularly on the reasons why she had not been consulted in the affair.

Miss Panney heard him to the end without a change in the rigidity of her face and attitude. "Very well, then," she said, when he had finished, "I see exactly what you have done. You have thrown me aside for a cook."

"Not at all!" exclaimed the doctor. "I had no idea of throwing you aside.
In fact, Miss Panney, I never thought of you in the matter at all."

"Exactly, exactly," said the old lady, with emphatic sharpness; "you never thought of me at all. That is the sum and substance of what you have done. I gave you my confidence. I told you my intentions, my hopes, the plan which was to crown and finish the work of my life. I told you I would make the grandson of the only man I ever loved my heir, and I would do this, because I wished him to marry the daughter of the man who was my best friend on earth. The marriage of these two and the union of the estate of Cobhurst with the wealth of the Bannisters was a project which, as I told you, had grown dear to my heart, and for which I was thinking and dreaming and working. All this you knew, and without a word to me, and if you speak the truth, all for the sake of your wretched stomach, you clap into Cobhurst a girl who will be engaged to Ralph Haverley in less than a month."

The doctor moved impatiently in his chair.

"Nonsense, Miss Panney. Cicely Drane will not harm your plans. She is a sensible, industrious girl, who attends to her own business, and—"

"Precisely," said Miss Panney; "and her own business will be to settle for life at Cobhurst. She may not be courting young Haverley to-day, but she will begin to-morrow. She will do it, and what is more, she would be a fool if she did not. It does not matter what sort of a girl she is;" and now Miss Panney began to speak louder, and stood up; "it does not matter if she had five legs and two heads; you have no right to thrust any intruder into a household which I had taken into my charge, and for which I had my plans, all of which you knew. You are a false friend, Dr. Tolbridge, and at your doorstep I have shaken the dust from my skirts and my feet." And with a quick step and a high head, she marched out of the room.