"
Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly child of eight
in his arms. The little thing was looking up in his face with delight,
screaming at his jokes.
"You are right, Mark: the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong place
while he is so fond of little children."
"Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk,
Doctor?"
"I do indeed."
"Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor
dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband
than your boy."
"It would be a poor enough match for her."
"Tut! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my words, Doctor,
that boy'll be a credit to you; he'll make a noise in the world, or I
know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven years hence, and he wants
still to turn traveller, let him. If he's minded to go round the
world, I'll back him to go, somehow or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned
Thurnall!"
The Doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save an
argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to
scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by
patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty
sharply to task on practical matters.
"Best fellow alive is Thurnall; but not a man of business, poor
fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what he'd do without
me."
So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to Minchampstead
in the afternoon, and got three hours' good shooting; but in the
evening he vanished; and his father went into Armsworth's to look for
him.
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