“I didn’t say you had. All the same I hope you’ll not scold me for having asked him to supper to-morrow night. He says Sunday is such a dull day in Grendon.”
“I can’t promise to stay in for him if I’m sent for,” said Dr. Maclean, in a voice which his wife thought somewhat tiresome.
There had been a time, not so very long ago, when it was she, rather than her husband, who had disliked the young medical man who had suddenly “put up his plate,” as the saying is, on the door of almost the last house in Grendon. But Dr. Tasker had spoken to her very pleasantly at the cricket match. He had made friends, too, with Jean, and so Mrs. Maclean was now prepared to take him, at any rate in a measure, to her kindly Scots heart.
For a few moments there was silence in the room. Dr. Maclean turned himself round, and his eyes rested with appreciative affection on the bent head of the girl who even in a few weeks had so much brightened and enlivened his own and his wife’s childless home.
Jean’s hair was the colour of spun gold, and she had a delicately clear skin, giving depth to her hazel eyes. But her generous-lipped mouth was too large for beauty, and her features were irregular. Yet she looked so happy-natured, intelligent, and healthy, that the general impression produced by her appearance was that of a pretty, as well as that of a very agreeable girl.
Perhaps she felt her uncle’s grateful, kindly glance, for suddenly she looked up and smiled.
“Well, Uncle Jock?” she exclaimed, “a penny for your thoughts!”
“I wonder if I’d really better tell you my thoughts,” he answered rather soberly.
“Of course you must!” cried his wife.
She, too, put down her work for a moment on the table and looked at him.