"Well, we have talked about Miss Crowe."
"Oh, you have? Do you call that having plenty to talk about?"
"We have talked about Mr. Bruce,—haven't we, Elizabeth?" said Miss Cooper, who had her own notion of being agreeable.
It was not an altogether bad notion, perhaps; but Bruce found her interruptions rather annoying, and insensibly allowed them to shorten his visit. Yet, as it was, he sat till eleven o'clock,—a stay quite unprecedented at Glenham.
When he left the house, he went splashing down the road with a very elastic tread, springing over the starlit puddles, and trolling out some sentimental ditty. He reached the inn, and went up to his sister's sitting-room.
"Why, Robert, where have you been all this while?" said Miss Bruce.
"At Dr. Cooper's."
"Dr. Cooper's? I should think you had! Who's Dr. Cooper?"
"Where Miss Crowe's staying."
"Miss Crowe? Ah, Mrs. Littlefield's friend! Is she as pretty as ever?"