“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Denton. “I was glad a few minutes ago, for I thought you had had an escape; that, like so many more able men, you had been dazzled by the outside of some bright, fashionable butterfly. Now I can condole with you. Then there must have been a reason—another was in the way?” Neil was silent.
“Ah, that is bad. Well, out of the bad good often comes, my dear boy. You see how fatherly I have grown toward you, Elthorne; and some day I may, after all, be able to congratulate you on a happy union.”
“Never, sir.”
“Who knows?” said the old surgeon, smiling. “Well, I am no matchmaker, only your old friend and master, and I speak very plainly to you. Do you know, Elthorne, that there is one woman in the world whom I have often thought should be your wife?”
Neil looked at him wildly.
“A refined, graceful lady, with a heart of gold, if you could win her. I have seen little things, too, at times, which have made me think that my hopes would bear fruit.”
Neil half turned away, and the old man sat tapping the top of his hat with the tips of his thin, white fingers, as he went on dreamily.
“I ought not to have given my mind to such matters, but the thoughts came unbidden, and I said to myself, it would be the perfection of a union; and, old bachelor as I am, I would have given her away as if she had been my own child.”
Neil’s head began to droop, but the old man’s mind was so deeply immersed in the subject nearest his heart that he did not see the change in his pupil’s face.
“Like the meddlesome old idiot I was, I snatched at the opportunity of bringing you together, and insisted upon her coming down to your father’s place to tend him.”