And so at breakfast he narrated all his adventures, and told who were at
the dinner party, and described two fine ladies' dresses--for the doctor
had skill in millinery, though it was as little known as Don Quixote's
talent for making bird-cages and tooth-picks, confided, as we remember,
in one of his conversations with honest Sancho, under the cork trees. He
told her his whole innocent little budget of gossip, in his own simple,
pleasant way; and his little Lily sat looking on her beloved old man,
and smiling, but saying little, and her eyes often filling with tears;
and he looked, when he chanced to see it--wistfully and sadly for an
instant, but he made no remark.
And sometime after, as she happened to pass the study-door, he called
her--'Little Lily, come here.' And in she came; and there was the
doctor, all alone and erect before his bookshelves, plucking down a
volume here, and putting up one there, and--
'Shut the door, little Lily,' said he gently and cheerily, going on with
his work. 'I had a letter yesterday evening, my darling, from Captain
Devereux, and he tells me that he's very much attached to you; and I
don't wonder at his being in love with little Lily--he could not help
it.
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