“No, no; no, no!” he cried holding up his hands. “They are nauseous medicines that I take to do me good.”
“Indeed!” said the little lady, lingering in the room, and hanging about her brother’s chair as if loth to go; and there was a very sarcastic ring in her voice.
“Oh, be merciful, Miss Rosebury!” said the doctor, laughing. “I am only a weak man—a solitary wanderer upon the face of the earth! I have no pleasant home. I have no sister to keep house.”
“And keep you in order,” said the Reverend Arthur, smiling pleasantly.
“And to keep me in order!” cried the doctor. “Mine’s a hard life, Miss Rosebury, and with all a man’s vanity—a little man’s vanity, for we little men have a great deal of conceit to make up for our want of stature—I think I do deserve a few creature comforts.”
“Which you shall have while you stay, doctor; so now light your cigar, for I’ll be bound to say you have a store of the little black rolls somewhere about you.”
“I confess,” he said, smiling, “I carry them in the same case with a few surgical instruments.”
“But I think we’ll go into the little greenhouse, Mary,” said the Reverend Arthur. “I feel sure Harry Bolter would not mind.”
“Mind? My dear Miss Rosebury, I’ll go and sit outside on a gate and smoke if you like.”
“No, no,” said the Reverend Arthur, mildly; “the green fly are rather gaining ground amongst my flowers, and I thought it would kill a few.”