'Pax,' he returned, laughingly, 'it is too hot to renew the skirmish we carried on in the tent. I have brought you a favourable report of your brother, Miss Lambert; Mr. Warden, an old college chum of his, had arrived unexpectedly, and he was showing him the church.'
One of Mildred's sweet smiles flitted over her face.
'How good you are to take all this trouble for me, Dr. Heriot.'
Dr. Heriot gave her an inscrutable look in which drollery came uppermost.
'Are you given to weigh fractional kindnesses in your neighbour? Most people give gratitude in grains for whole ounces of avoirdupois weight; what a grateful soul yours is, Miss Lambert.'
'The moral being that Dr. Heriot dislikes thanks, Mildred.'
Dr. Heriot gave a low exclamation of surprise, which evidently irritated Miss Trelawny. 'It has come to that already, has it,' he said to himself with an inward chuckle, but Mildred could make nothing of his look of satisfaction and Ethel's aggravated colour.
'Why don't you deliver us one of your favourite tirades against feminine caprice and impulse?' observed Miss Trelawny, in a piqued voice.
'When caprice and impulse take the form of wisdom,' was the answer in a meaning tone, 'Mentor's office of rebuke fails.'
Ethel arched her eyebrows slightly, 'Mentor approves then?'
'Can you doubt it?' in a more serious tone. 'I feel we may still have hopes of you;' then turning to Mildred, with the play of fun still in his eyes, 'Our aside baffles you, Miss Lambert. Miss Trelawny is good enough to style me her Mentor, which means that she has given me a right to laugh at her nonsense and talk sense to her sometimes.'
'You are too bad,' returned Ethel in a low voice; but she was evidently hurt by the raillery, gentle as it was.
'Miss Trelawny forms such extravagant ideals of men and women, that no one but a moral Anak can possibly reach to her standard; the rest of us have to stand tiptoe in the vain effort to raise ourselves.'
'Dr. Heriot, how can you be so absurd?' laughed Mildred.
'It must be very fatiguing to stand on tiptoe all one's life; perhaps we might feel a difficulty of breathing in your rarer atmosphere, Miss Trelawny--fancy one's ideas being always in full dress, from morning to night. When you marry, do you always mean to dish up philosophy with your husband's breakfast?'