"So she is, young man," answered Dr. Cricket, with his fierce little frown. "There is no doubt of that. She told me her story this morning. I wanted her to rest; but the poor thing was so nervous I thought it would hurt her less to talk than to keep still."
Flint smiled sardonically. The Doctor's little foible of curiosity had not escaped his observant eye.
"You would have done much better to shut her up; but what did she say?" queried Miss Standish.
Flint smiled again. But the Doctor began briskly:—
"Why, it seems that the Costellos are the children of a Scotch minister; though, from his name, I should guess that he had a drop more or less of Irish blood in his veins, and their looks show it too. They were brought up in a manse on one of those brown and bare Scotch moors. [Pg 146] The boy was to be educated for the church, like his father; but when he was seventeen, he grew restive under the strictness of his training, turned wild, and ran away. For ten years they had no word of him. The father reproached himself for having been too hard on the boy; and he never stopped loving and praying for him. On his death-bed, he charged Nora—that's the girl's name you know—to sell all the things in the manse, and start out into the world to find her brother, and never to give up the search as long as she lived."
"That is always the way," said Flint, with a shrug: "the reward of virtue is to be appointed trustee of vice—no assets—assume all the liabilities."
"Hm! wide, of the mark this time, Mr. Flint. The very day after her father's death, Nora Costello received a letter from her brother, saying that he was ashamed to come home without first securing forgiveness, and asking his sister to intercede for him, and to meet him in London with the news of his pardon."
"Exactly," resumed Flint with irritating calmness. "Prodigal son sends postal card stating that he is prepared to receive overtures looking to a resumption of family relations. No questions asked."
"He has not seen Captain Costello, has he, [Pg 147] Dr. Cricket? or he would be more sparing of his jibes."
"Never mind, Miss Winifred, Mr. Flint is ashamed of having played the humanitarian this morning, so he is trying to atone by double cynicism this evening; but don't let him interrupt my story again, under pain of being sent back to the tavern, instead of taken care of in Mrs. White's best bed-room, under the charge of the best doctor (though I do say it) in Philadelphia.