My father took the news philosophically enough, with
some rather sardonic remark about my patient and me being
well qualified to keep each other company. But to my
mother it was a flash of joy, followed by a thunderclap
of consternation. I had only three under-shirts, the
best of my linen had gone to Belfast to be refronted and
recuffed, the night-gowns were not marked yet--there were
a dozen of those domestic difficulties of which the mere
male never thinks. A dreadful vision of Lady Saltire
looking over my things and finding the heel out of one of
my socks obsessed my mother. Out we trudged together,
and before evening her soul was at rest, and I had
mortgaged in advance my first month's salary. She was
great, as we walked home, upon the grand people into
whose service I was to enter. "As a matter of fact, my
dear," said she, "they are in a sense relations of yours.
You are very closely allied to the Percies, and the
Saltires have Percy blood in them also. They are only a
cadet branch, and you are close upon the main line; but
still it is not for us to deny the connection." She
brought a cold sweat out upon me by suggesting that she
should make things easy by writing to Lord Saltire and
explaining our respective positions. Several times
during the evening I heard her murmur complacently that
they were only the cadet branch.
Am I not the slowest of story-tellers? But you
encourage me to it by your sympathetic interest in
details.
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