“Yes; his business with me was brief, you see.”
“That may be; but I assure you, Bell, I do not feel exactly satisfied with you. I should like to know—”
“Ask me no questions to-night, papa: I am not well, and I wish to retire. If you will permit me to go to my room at once. I will dutifully answer any thing you please in the morning.”
“Well, go, my love;—go, and God bless you! but it's very mysterious for all that.”
Isabel retired, and, in a short time, the attorney, followed by George Wharton, entered the parlour. They found the Doctor walking to and fro, with his arms folded across his breast, and evidently absorbed in thought. Their appearance roused him from his reverie: he advanced, very earnestly shook hands with both of them, and asked pardon for his want of urbanity; as an excuse for which, he protested, with ludicrous solemnity, that he scarcely knew whether he was walking on his head or his heels. “My pupil, too,” he continued, looking at young Wharton, but addressing the attorney, “I regret to perceive, still clothes his countenance in the frowns of displeasure.”
“Isabel is occupied in privately conferring somewhere with our new friend, I presume,” said George.
“No, child—not at all,” replied the Doctor, with affected calmness; “she is gone to her room: one of her old attacks of head-ache has occurred, and we may not expect to sec her again for the remainder of the evening. The gentleman of colour had departed before my return to the parlour.”
“It would have been as well, I think, if you had not quitted it,” said young Wharton, angrily: “I remember the time when you made Miss Plympton a close prisoner, and would suffer none but the inmates of your own house to speak to her, in order that she should not hold any communication with a young gentleman of respectable family who was well known in the neighbourhood: now, you leave her with a stranger of the most suspicious appearance, who boldly tells you that he has private business with her, which she refuses to hear even in your presence! But of course, Miss Plympton acquainted you with the purport of his visit.”
“No, George, I declare she did not,” said the Doctor, with great humility.
“What, sir! did she refuse when you insisted?”