The doctor cleared his voice, and addressed himself to explain, and before his first period was reached, William and old Winnie, wofully sleepy, had arrived.
Luckily the person who approaches such oracles as “Henbane,” it is well known, must do so with a peaceful and charitable soul. So Miss Perfect was appeasable, and apologies being made and accepted, she thus opened her mind to the doctor—
“I don’t complain, Doctor Drake—William, light the candles over the chimney-piece—although you terrified me a great deal more than in my circumstances I ought to have been capable of.”
The candles were now lighted, and shone cheerfully upon the short, fat figure, and ruddy, roguish face of Doctor Drake, and as he was taking one of his huge pinches of snuff, she added—
“And I won’t deny that I did fancy for a moment you might be a spirit-form, and possibly that of Henbane.”
William Maubray, who was looking at the doctor, as Miss Perfect reverently lowered her voice at these words, exploded into something so like a laugh, though he tried to pass it off for a cough, that his aunt looked sharply on him in silence for a moment.
“And I’m blowed but I was a bit frightened too, Ma’am, when I saw you at the door there,” said the doctor.
“Well, let us try,” said Miss Perfect. “Come, we are four; let us try who are present—what spirits, and seek to communicate. You don’t object, Dr. Drake?”
“I? Ho! oh! dear no. I should not desire better—aw-haw—instruction, Ma’am,” answered the doctor.
I am afraid he was near saying “fun.”