“Indeed! That is most interesting. May I be allowed to congratulate you? And who is the happy man?”
“Wait, please! The man is Lord Carthew, who for some silly freak changed names with his friend when he came here last night.”
The doctor laughed, a long, low, comfortable, and self-satisfied laugh.
“The young gentleman did not deceive me,” he said, complacently. “I know Lord Northborough well, and the family likeness between him and his son is remarkable.”
“Apparently,” said the young lady, angrily, “I was the only person whom it was deemed necessary to deceive. In the name of Pritchard, Lord Carthew asked me to marry him, and I told him I would think about it. I did think about it, and I decided against him, but in the mean time he had had interviews with my father and mother in which he appears to have presented himself in the light of an accepted suitor. But I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying him. In fact,” she added, vigorously, “the very idea of it makes me hate him!”
“I really,” began the doctor, “can see nothing in the young gentleman’s manners or style to justify your dislike——”
“It isn’t that!” she interrupted, eagerly. “Dr. Graham, you are a clever man—you understand men and women. Don’t you know quite well that it is possible to like people very much as friends, but to loathe them in the suggested capacity of husbands or wives?”
“Certainly, certainly. But in this case the match appears so exceptionally happy—however, the subject in discussion is your mamma’s health. You tell me you were talking over the proposed marriage with her. I suppose that she is in favor of it?”
“She has set her heart upon it,” said Stella, with a sigh. “And as soon as I told her my objections she fainted.”
“One thing is quite certain,” said Dr. Graham, emphatically. “If you wish to preserve her life, you must at least affect to fall in with her views for the present.”