“Can’t be helped, mother dear,” said the young man, passing his arm round her and walking up towards the window, where they stood watching his lordship’s diminishing figure. “I want to be a good son, and I never kick against the dad’s eccentricities, except when they are too bad. That is such a petty, ungentlemanly trick—an insult to as fine a fellow as ever breathed, and—”
“You do love Veronica, my boy?” said Lady Pinemount, gazing wistfully at her son.
“Love her?” said the young man, with his frank, handsome English face lighting. “Mother dear, could I pick out a sweeter wife?”
Lady Pinemount sighed, and kissed her son.
Volume One—Chapter Three.
How the Doctor Hit.
“Down again, Very!” cried the Doctor, a week later, as he came in from a botanical ramble to breakfast. “Why, eh?—yes—no: it has been burned.”
“Yes, papa: didn’t you see the flames?”