“What is it then?” said Mrs Doctor, very sharply.
“A handsome young woman,” chuckled the doctor—“his daughter Helen.”
“Now, Henry, I do declare that you are insufferable!” cried Mrs Doctor, angrily, as her brother rose softly, walked to the window of the pretty palm-thatched bungalow, and stood gazing out at the bright flowers with which the doctor had surrounded his place.
“Well, it’s true enough,” chuckled the doctor. “I never saw such a girl in my life. She has had that great fellow Chumbley hanging after her for weeks, and now—”
“And now what, sir?”
Perhaps it was the wind, but certainly just then there was a sound as of a faint sigh from somewhere by the window, and it seemed as if the chaplain was recalling the past days of repose at his little home near Mayleyfield, and wondering whether he had done right to come; but no one heeded him, and the doctor went on:
“Now she seems to have lassoed young Hilton.”
“What, Captain Hilton?”
“Yes, my dear, with a silken lasso; and he is all devotion.”
“Henry, you astound me!” cried Mrs Doctor. “Why, I thought that Mr Harley meant something there.”