“Do you think so, Mr Harley?” said the lady drily.
“Indeed I do, ma’am,” he replied, “and I am very proud to know her.”
“Better hook her, Harley,” said the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye, as he saw his wife’s serious, suspicious glances. “She’ll be caught up like a shot.”
“Then I hope you and Mrs Bolter will help and see that she makes no foolish match. I beg her pardon, though,” he added, hastily; “she is not a girl who would do that.”
“You are first in the field,” said the doctor, in spite of an admonitory shake of the head from his lady. “Why not make your hay while the sun shines?”
The Resident sat gazing very seriously out at sea, and his voice was very low and tender as he replied:
“No; Miss Stuart is a young lady for whom I feel just such sentiments as I should presume a man would feel for his bright, intelligent child. That is all, Mrs Bolter,” he said, turning quickly. “I ought to congratulate you upon the warm hold you have upon Miss Grey’s affections.”
He rose then and walked away, with the little doctor’s wife watching him intently.
“Henry,” she said suddenly, “that man is either a very fine fellow or else he is an arch-hypocrite.”
“Well, I’ll vouch he isn’t the last,” said the doctor, warmly, “for I’ve known him ten years, and I’ve had him down twice with very severe attacks of fever. I know him by heart. I’ve sounded him all over, heart, lungs, liver: he hasn’t a failing spot in his whole body.”