He was
a sanguine man. A little bit of hope went a long way in encouraging this
good doctor, and he felt sure that better days would dawn for him now
that Grace had come home. A less hopeful temperament would have been apt
to see rocks in the way, the girl having been so differently educated
from the others, and accustomed to luxuries which they had never known.
Not so her father. He saw everything in rose-color.
As Doctor Wainwright toward evening turned his horse's head homeward he
was rudely stopped on a street corner by a red-faced, red-bearded man,
who presented him with a bill. The man grumbled out sullenly, with a
scowl on his face:
"Doctor Wainwright, I'm sorry to bother you, but this bill has been
standing a long time. It will accommodate me very much if you can let me
have something on account next Monday. I've got engagements to
meet--pressing engagements, sir."
"I'll do my best, Potter," said the doctor. Where he was to get any
money by Monday he did not know, but, as Potter said, the money was due.
He thrust the bill into his coat pocket and drove on, half his pleasure
in again seeing his child clouded by this encounter. Pulling his gray
mustache, the world growing dark as the sun went down, the father's
spirits sank to zero. He had peeped at the bill. It was larger than he
had supposed, as bills are apt to be. Two hundred dollars! And he
couldn't borrow, and there was nothing more to mortgage.
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