"Ay," he said, "there's no doubt about that third friend," but his brow clouded as Barbara added, "There is one person in Chancton I'm very anxious to see,—a Mrs. Boringdon. She is the mother of my friend Mrs. Johnstone."
The mention of this lady's name found Doctor McKirdy quite prepared, and ready with an answer. "Well, I'm not saying you'll like her, and I'm not saying you'll dislike her."
"If she's at all like her daughter I know I shall like her."
"May-be you will prefer the son, Mr. Oliver Boringdon—I do so myself, though I've no love to waste on him."
How the doctor longed to tell Mrs. Rebell what he really thought of this Mrs. Boringdon, the mother of Madame Sampiero's estate agent, and of how badly from his point of view this same young gentleman, Oliver Boringdon, sometimes behaved to him! But native caution, a shrewd knowledge that such warnings often bring about the exact opposite to what is intended by those who utter them, kept him silent.
Barbara's next words annoyed him keenly.
"Oliver!" she cried, "of course I shall like him!"
"Oliver? Then you're already acquainted with him?" The doctor felt beside himself with vexation. He was a man of feuds, and to him the land agent, all the more so that he was a highly educated man, who had been a civil servant, and later, for a brief period of glory, a member of Parliament, was a very real thorn in the flesh.
But Barbara was laughing, really laughing, and for the first time since her arrival at Chancton. "If I were acquainted with him," she cried, "surely I should not be calling him by his Christian name! But of course his sister, Mrs. Johnstone, has talked to me of him: he is her only brother, and she thinks him quite perfect."
"It's well there are two to think him so! I refer, o' course, Ma'am, to the youth himself, and to this lady who is a friend of yours."