"
Louisa had listened to this discourse with apathetic
patience. "If you don't mind, I don't know that I do,"
she said when it was finished. "Perhaps he wouldn't
have made a good doctor; he's got a very quick temper.
He reminds me of father--oh, ever so much more than you do.
He contradicts everything everybody says. He quite knows
it all."
"But he's a good fellow, isn't he?" urged Thorpe. "I mean,
he's got his likable points? I'm going to be able to get
along with him?"
"I didn't get along with him very well," the mother
admitted, reluctantly, "but I daresay with a man it would
be different. You see, his father was ill all those
four years, and Alfred hated the shop as bad as you did,
and perhaps in my worry I blamed him more than was fair.
I want to be fair to him, you know."
"But is he a gentleman? That puts it in a word,"
Thorpe insisted.
"Oh, mercy yes," Louisa made ready answer. "My only fear
is--whether you won't find him too much of a gentleman."
Thorpe knitted his brows. "I only hope we're talking
about the same thing," he said, in a doubtful tone.
Before she could speak, he lifted his hand.
"Never mind--I can see for myself in ten minutes more
than you could tell me in a lifetime. I've got a plan.
I'm going on the Continent in a few days' time, to stay
for three or four months.
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