"Now, don't bother yet, my dear old darling Leslie," for this was her unromantic style ("a jolly one," the doctor thought it) of addressing him.
Mr. Basset would have been blind indeed, had he not seen the growing intimacy which existed between them; but he had no idea that matters had proceeded the length of interchanged promises. Neither did he observe the ring which Rose now wore on her engaged-finger—to wit (for the information of the uninitiated), the third of the right hand; and to use a hackneyed phrase, "as fairy" a finger as ever rejoiced in that pleasant decoration, for among Rose's chief beauties were her hands, plump, white, and tiny.
Recent events, we have said, prevented explanations, or any account of what the doctor's prospects were.
"Not much, they are, certainly, dear, dear Rose," whispered Heriot, as they sat together in the moonlight, while the ship still sped before the wind, with all the reefs out of her topsails. "I have, one way and another, but 100l. a year at present. Had I more, I would have sought out a snug practice at home, and not roved about as the surgeon of a sea-going merchantman."
"Then you would not have met me, sir," said Rose, with waggish asperity.
"But I have an uncle, a jolly old fellow, who loves me well, for my mother was his only sister; and he loves me for that, perhaps, rather than any merits of my own."
"My poor modest Leslie! well—and this uncle?"
"When he dies—distant may the day be when he does so!—I shall come into 400l. per annum more. If at the Isle of France, I could battle the watch——"
"Battle what?"
"Oh, it is an old college phrase; I mean, fight my way into a practice somehow. With you to cheer me on, we should do very well. Then, an M.D., to get a practice, must have a wife."