"
He made no answer; but sat smiling at her. The phantom watched them,
silently.
"What made pa so cross and grim, to-night? Tell Netty--do," she
pleaded.
"Oh! because;--everything went wrong with me, to-day. There." And he
looked as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in his life.
"No, no, pa-sy; that won't do. I want the particulars," continued Netty,
shaking her head, smilingly.
"Particulars! Well, then, Miss Nathalie Renton," he began, with mock
gravity, "your professional father is losing some of his oldest
patients. Everybody is in ruinous good health; and the grass is growing
in the graveyards."
"In the winter time, papa?--smart grass!"
"Not that I want practice," he went on, getting into soliloquy; "or
patients, either. A rich man who took to the profession simply for the
love of it, can't complain on that score. But to have an interloping
she-doctor take a family I've attended ten years, out of my hands, and
to hear the hodge-podge gabble about physiological laws, and woman's
rights, and no taxation without representation, they learn from
her,--well, it's too bad!"
"Is that all, pa-sy? Seems to me _I_'d like to vote, too," was Netty's
piquant rejoinder.
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