This had been of no consequence to the old gentleman during his lifetime, for he had money of his own which made him independent of his profession. In later years, however, he had speculated largely and unsuccessfully, and when on his death-bed he was obliged to tell his son that all he had to leave him was his house and just the bare practice. This intelligence had in no way disconcerted John Sinclair, however. He said he had his brains and his hands, and with those useful commodities had no fears for the future.
He had soon worked the practice up into something very much better than it had been formerly, and, what was more encouraging, he was beginning to be looked upon with favour by his brother practitioners, it being now no uncommon thing for him to be sent for to neighbouring towns to hold consultations with men of long standing and experience.
Still his fortune was not made, and in his castle-building moments he now became painfully conscious of many defects in his bachelor home.
The carpets, which a little while back had appeared quite handsome in his eyes, now look threadbare and worn. The curtains are all of them old-fashioned and dingy. The leather of the dining-room furniture has suddenly become shabby and scratched, whilst the coverings of all the drawing-room chairs and sofas, &c., are faded to the last degree.
No, he could not ask Honor to share his home as it is. He must wait until he shall have the means to brighten up the old house with modern furniture, and to make it both pretty and comfortable. He must wait, too, until he has a certain income (how much, he has not quite decided even to himself) to depend upon yearly.
"She has slaved and laboured enough, poor child!" he says to himself sighing, "and she shall never have to do it again through any rashness of mine."
So altogether John Sinclair is not in the best of spirits just now, for while he is waiting might not someone else step in and secure the prize.
Mrs. Merivale sees the change, and guesses pretty accurately the reason of it. But while she pities him from her heart she feels rightly that nothing she can do will mend matters.
Daisy does not find her companion nearly so amusing and cheerful now as she used to, and one morning, feeling in extra good spirits herself, and only getting mono-syllabic answers to all her childish flow of chatter, she plainly informs him of that fact without the slightest regard to his feelings.