“Hang your compliments, you young rascal; I’ll give you her love when I come back!” and the doctor laughed himself with a cheery ho! ho! ho! out of the room, down the staircase, to the dining-room below, where Mrs Hartshorne—the old lady looking quite broken already from the anxiety she had gone through—was waiting to hear his report about Tom.
They had decided not to tell him yet about Susan in his present state—not, at all events, until the lawyer came down.
The doctor said Tom was doing very well, although excitement would be bad for him; and then went out to pay some calls around, promising to call back in a few hours’ time.
You may be sure he did not forget, with his kind heart, to call round at the Pringles, where he found little Lizzie listening anxiously for his approach, for he had promised her last night to come and give the news about Tom.
She eagerly thanked him for coming and for his good news, and coyly gave the doctor permission to take back her love to Tom: of course, she was as much surprised as the doctor was to hear of Susan’s disappearance, and her sympathies were quite aroused when he told her how broken the old lady seemed under the double trouble she was suffering under.
Lizzie immediately offered to go up and see her, not knowing her general disposition so well as our friend Aesculapius; but he told her that it would be useless, and that nothing could be done until the lawyer and the detective arrived from London. Lizzie was doubly anxious about Susan for Tom’s sake: it is wonderful the interest that young ladies take in the sisters and other relatives of young gentlemen for whom they may entertain regard! But Lizzie could do nothing, and was even more useless in the juncture than the dowager had at first supposed the governess to be when she offered to make herself useful.
After paying his round of calls, the doctor returned to The Poplars, some three hours or more from the time of his setting out: and he and the dowager then sat down in sympathy and mutual anxiety together in the parlour, for the first time in their respective lives, to wait for the return of Miss Kingscott from her mission to London.
Thus the hours passed by, the day after Susan Hartshorne’s elopement.