A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches.

A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches.

“Wait until Mr. Right comes along,” said Mrs. Fraley, who had pushed back her chair from the table and was beating her foot on the floor in a way that betokened great displeasure and impatience.  “I am only thankful I had my day when women were content to be stayers at home.  I am only speaking for your good, and you’ll live to see the truth of it, poor child!”

“I am sure she will get over this,” apologized Miss Prince, after they had reached the parlor, for she found that her niece had lingered with Miss Fraley in the dining-room.

“Don’t talk to me about the Princes changing their minds,” answered the scornful old hostess.  “You ought to know them better than that by this time.”  But just at that moment young Gerry came tapping at the door, and the two ladies quickly softened their excited looks and welcomed him as the most powerful argument for their side of the debate.  It seemed quite a thing of the past that he should have fancied Mary Parish, and more than one whisper had been listened to that the young man was likely to have the Prince inheritance, after all.  He looked uncommonly well that evening, and the elder women could not imagine that any damsel of his own age would consider him slightingly.  Nan had given a little shrug of impatience when she heard his voice join the weaker ones in the parlor, and a sense of discomfort that she never had felt before came over her suddenly.  She reminded herself that she must tell her aunt that very night that the visit must come to an end.  She had neglected her books and her drives with the doctor altogether too long already.

XIX

FRIEND AND LOVER

In these summer days the young lawyer’s thoughts had often been busy elsewhere while he sat at the shaded office window and looked out upon the river.  The very housekeeping on the damaged ship became more interesting to him than his law books, and he watched the keeper’s wife at her various employments on deck, or grew excited as he witnessed the good woman’s encounters with marauding small boys, who prowled about hoping for chances of climbing the rigging or solving the mysteries of the hold.  It had come to be an uncommon event that a square-rigged vessel should make the harbor of Dunport, and the elder citizens ignored the deserted wharves, and talked proudly of the days of Dunport’s prosperity, convicting the railroad of its decline as much as was consistent with their possession of profitable stock.  The younger people took the empty warehouses for granted, and listened to their grandparents’ stories with interest, if they did not hear them too often; and the more enterprising among them spread their wings of ambition and flew away to the larger cities or to the westward.  George Gerry had stayed behind reluctantly.  He had neither enough desire for a more active life, nor so high a purpose that he could disregard whatever opposition lay in his way. 

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A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.