"Have you been receiving a little fraternal advice?" queried Sadie, her mischievous eyes dancing with fun over the supposed discomfiture of one of the two gentlemen, she cared very little which.
"Not at all. On the contrary, I have been giving a little of that mixture in a rather unpalatable form, I fear. I haven't a very high opinion of the world, Miss Sadie."
"Including yourself, do you mean?" was Sadie's demure reply.
Dr. Douglass looked the least bit annoyed; then he laughed, and answered with quiet grace:
"Yes, including even such an important individual as myself. However,
I have one merit which I consider very rare—sincerity."
Sadie's face assumed a half puzzled, half amused expression, as she tried by the moonlight to give a searching look at the handsome form leaning against the pillar opposite her.
"I wonder if you are as sincere as you pretend to be?" was her next complimentary sentence. "And also I wonder if the rest of the world are as unlimited a set of humbugs as you suppose? How do you fancy you happened to escape getting mixed up with the general humbugism of the world? This Mr. Parker, now, talks as though he felt it and meant it."
"He is a first-class fanatic of the most outrageous sort. There ought to be a law forbidding such ranters to hold forth, on pain of imprisonment for life."
"Dr. Douglass," said Sadie, speaking with grave dignity, "I would rather not hear you speak of that old gentleman in such a manner. He may be a fanatic and a ranter, but I believe he means it, and I can't help respecting him more than any cold-blooded moralist that I ever met. Besides, I can not forget that my honored father was among the despised class of whom you speak so scornfully."
"My dear friend," and Dr. Douglass' tone was as gentle as her mother's could have been, "forgive me if I have pained you; it was not intentional. I do not know what I have been saying—some unkind things perhaps, and that is always ungentlemanly; but I have been greatly disturbed this evening, and that must be my apology. Pardon me for detaining you so long in the evening air. May I advise you, professionally, to go in immediately?"