"I'll put a stop to all that pretty smartly"—the doctor exclaimed, with fine confidence. "But—but perhaps it would be better, mother, for me not to seem to take Sir Henry's part too strongly. At any rate until things come to a climax. He is coming this afternoon, you said; let him pop the question at once; and if she dares to refuse him, then let me have a turn at her. She has got a rare tongue; but I think I know something—at any rate, you know that I don't stand much nonsense."
They had scarcely settled their arrangements for her, when down the stairs came Christie, looking wonderfully pretty; but her song was not of equal beauty.
"There was an old dog, and his name was 'Shep;'
Says he to his daughter—don't you ever be a Step."
She nodded to her mother very dutifully, and to her brother with a smile that made him laugh; and then she went out of the front-door, almost as if she felt contempt for it.
"Won't do. Won't do at all;" said Jemmy. "She'll say 'no,' this afternoon. Girls never know what they are about. But better let him bring it to the point. And then leave it to me, mother. I understand her. And she knows I am not to be trifled with."
Sir Henry Haggerstone came in time for luncheon, showed no signs of nervousness, and got on very well with everybody. He knew something of everything that is likely to be talked of anywhere; and yet he had the knack of letting down his knowledge, as a carpet for his friends to walk upon. Everybody thought—"Well, I have taught him something. He could not be expected to understand that subject. But now, from his own words, I feel that he will. What a fool Smith is, to be bothering a man like Sir Henry with the stuff that is a. b. c. to him! I wonder that he could put up with it."
But however great Sir Henry was in powers of conversation, or even of auscultation, his eloquence—if there was any—fell flat, and his audience was brief, and the answer unmistakable.
"It can't be. It mustn't be. It shan't be, at any price." That last expression was a bit of slang, but it happened to fit the circumstances.