“Oh, you needn’t smile,” she protested; and his face at once became comically grave. “You didn’t have him for a bug-a-boo when you were little, as I did. That doctor of his gave orders that no one was to see him just now, and 123 I am glad Gertrude will be back before we are admitted. With Gertrude to back me up I could be brave as––as––”
“A sheep,” suggested the stranger.
“I was going to say a lion, but lions are big, and I’m not very.”
“No, you are not,” he agreed. “Sad, isn’t it?”
Then they both laughed. She was elated, bubbling over with delight, at meeting some one in Loringwood who actually laughed.
“Gertrude’s note last night never told us she had company, and I had gloomy forebodings of Uncle Matthew and Uncle Matthew’s doctor, to whom I would not dare speak a word, and the relief of finding real people here is a treat, so please don’t mind if I’m silly.”
“I shan’t––when you are,” he agreed, magnanimously. “But pray enlighten me as to why you will be unable to exchange words with the medical stranger? He’s no worse a fellow than myself.”
“Of course not,” she said, with so much fervor that her listener’s smile was clearly a compromise with laughter. “But a doctor from Paris! Our old Doctor Allison is pompous and domineering enough, and he never was out of the state, but this one from Europe, he is sure to oppress me with his wonderful knowledge. Indeed, I don’t know who he will find to talk to here, now, except Judge Clarkson. The judge will be scholarly enough for him.”
“And does he, also, oppress you with his professional knowledge?”
Evilena’s laugh rang out clear as a bird’s note.