Smothering his desire to throttle and then pitch into the river the old man, calling him a a prig of a doctor, so coolly and deliberately marring his golden visions, the doctor answered, naturally,
“The Richards family live there, sir. You mean their son, I presume.”
“Yes, the chap that has travelled and come home so changed. They do say he’s actually taken to visiting all the rheumatic old women in town, applying sticking plasters to their backs and administering squills to their children, all free gratis. Don’t ask a red—does it for charity’s sake: but I know he expects to get his pay out of Alice’s purse, as he does it to please her and nothing else. He ought to be rewarded for all his philanthropy with a rich wife, that’s a fact. It’s too bad to have him so disappointed, and if he comes out to the funeral I believe I’ll tell him as a friend that my advice is, not to marry for money—it won’t pay,” and from beneath the slouched hat drawn so closely over the comical face, the keen gray eyes looked curiously.
Poor doctor! How he fidgeted, moving so often that his tormenter demurely asked him if he were sitting on a thistle!
“Does Miss Johnson remain here?” the doctor asked at last, and Mr. Liston replied by telling what he knew of the arrangements.
At the mention of Worthington the doctor, looked up quickly. Whom had he known by that name, or where had he heard it before? “Mrs. Worthington, Mrs. Worthington,” he repeated, unpleasant memories of something, he knew not what, rising to his mind. “Is she living in this vicinity?”
“In Kentucky. It’s a widow and her daughter,” Mr. Liston answered, wisely resolving to say nothing of a young man, lest the doctor should feel anxious.
“A widow and her daughter! I must be mistaken in thinking I ever knew any one by that name, though it seems familiar,” said the doctor, and as by this time he had heard all he wished to hear, he arose, and bidding Mr. Liston good morning walked away in no enviable frame of mind.
“I didn’t tell him a lie. He will be disappointed when he finds just how much she is worth, and my advice to him, or any other man, is not to marry for money,” Mr. Liston chucklingly soliloquized as he watched the crestfallen doctor disappearing from view, muttering to himself, “The wretch! to talk so to my face! I wish I’d knocked him down. Rheumatic woman and squills, indeed! But it’s all true, every word, and that’s the worst of it. I have turned fool just to get a pretty girl, or rather to get her money. But I won’t stay here to be laughed at. I’ll go back this very day. I am glad no one has seen me except that old rat, who never guessed I was the chap he complimented so highly, the rascal!”
Looking at his watch the doctor found that it lacked several hours ere the express from Boston was due. But this did not discourage him. He would stay in the fields or anywhere, and turning backward he followed the course of the river winding under the hill until he reached the friendly woods which shielded him from observation. How he hated himself hiding there among the trees, and how he longed for the downward train, which came at last, and when the village bell tolled out its summons to the house of mourning, he sat in a corner of the car returning to New York even faster than he had come.