“If I had thought so I would never have consented to come,” said the lady with asperity.
“Wouldn’t you, Mary? Wouldn’t you?” said the little doctor, taking her in his arms; and the lady withdrew her words just as a step was heard outside.
“Here’s another stoppage,” cried the doctor, impatiently. “Why, it’s Mrs Barlow. What does she want?”
Mrs Barlow was a widow lady of about forty, the relict of a well-to-do merchant of the station, who, after her widowhood, preferred to stay and keep her brother’s house to going back to England; at any rate, as she expressed it, for a few years.
She was one of the set who visited at Mr Perowne’s, and had also been at the trip up the river to the Inche Maida’s home; but being a decidedly neutral-tinted lady, in spite of her black attire, she was so little prominent that mention of her has not been necessary until now.
“Stop a minute;” she exclaimed, excitedly, as she arrested the doctor on his step.
“Not ill, are you, Mrs Barlow?” queried the doctor.
“Not bodily, doctor,” she began, “but—”
“My wife is inside, my dear madam,” cried the doctor, “and I must be off.”
“Stop!” exclaimed Mrs Barlow, authoritatively; and she took the little doctor’s arm, and led him back into the breakfast-room. “You are his brother, Dr Bolter. Mrs Bolter, you are his sister, ma’am. I can speak freely to you both.”