"They're a fearsome gossiping lot in Chancton," Doctor McKirdy was still speaking in an angry ruffled voice; "I don't suppose you'll have much call to see any of them, but Madam may just mean you to do so, and you may as well be put on your guard. And then you'll be having your own friends here, I'm thinking"--he shot a quick look at her--"Madam bid me tell you that she has no idea of your shutting yourself up, and having no company but Mrs. Turke and,"--he turned and made her an odd, ungainly little bow--"your most humble servant here!"
"I have no friends," said Barbara, in a very low tone. "Nay, I should not say that, for I have two very good friends, a Mr. Johnstone, the Governor of Santa Maria, and his wife--also, since yesterday, a third,--if he will take me on trust for my mother's sake." She smiled on her companion with a touch of very innocent coquetry. Doctor McKirdy's good humour came back.
"Ay," he said, "there's no doubt about that _third_ friend," but his brow clouded as Barbara added, "There is one person in Chancton I'm very anxious to see,--a Mrs. Boringdon. She is the mother of my friend Mrs. Johnstone."
The mention of this lady's name found Doctor McKirdy quite prepared, and ready with an answer. "Well, I'm not saying you'll like her, and I'm not saying you'll dislike her."
"If she's at all like her daughter I know I shall like her."
"May-be you will prefer the son, Mr. Oliver Boringdon--I do so myself, though I've no love to waste on him."
How the doctor longed to tell Mrs. Rebell what he really thought of this Mrs. Boringdon, the mother of Madame Sampiero's estate agent, and of how badly from his point of view this same young gentleman, Oliver Boringdon, sometimes behaved to him! But native caution, a shrewd knowledge that such warnings often bring about the exact opposite to what is intended by those who utter them, kept him silent.
"Oliver!" she cried, "of course I shall like him!"
"Oliver? Then you're already acquainted with him?" The doctor felt beside himself with vexation. He was a man of feuds, and to him the land agent, all the more so that he was a highly educated man, who had been a civil servant, and later, for a brief period of glory, a member of Parliament, was a very real thorn in the flesh.