"Wait a minute, Anne," said the doctor, as she straightened herself to rise. "This young Lloyd, now--what do YOU think of him?"
She widened demure blue eyes.
"Should you be sorry if I--liked him, Uncle Lee?" she smiled.
The old man rumpled his silver hair restlessly.
"No-o," he said, a little ruefully. "I suppose it'll be some man some day, my dear. I've been thinking--even little Cherry seems to be growing up!"
Anne, who modelled her deportment somewhat upon the conduct of Esther in "Bleak House," came to the hassock at his knee, and sat there, looking up at him with bright affection and respect.
"Cherry's only a child," she assured him, "and Alix will not be ready to give her heart to any man for years to come! But I'm twenty-four, Uncle. And sometimes I feel ready to--to try my own wings!"
He smiled at her absently; he was thinking of her mother, an articulate, academic, resolute woman, of whom he had never been fond.
"That's the way the wind blows, eh?" he asked kindly.
Anne widened her pretty eyes.