"
"What is that?" asked Cosmo eagerly.
"To borrow a little money of me for a few months? I am not at all
hard up at present. I had to borrow many a time when I was in
Edinburgh."
The boy-heart of Cosmo swelled in his bosom, and for a time he
could not answer. He thought with himself, "Here is a man of the
true sort!--a man after my father's own heart! who in the ground of
his rights plants fresh favours, and knows the inside of a fellow's
soul as well as his body! This is a rare man!"
But he felt it would be to do Joan a wrong to borrow money from the
doctor and not from her. So with every possible acknowledgment he
declined the generous offer. Now the doctor was quite simple in
behaving thus to Cosmo. He was a friendly man and a gentleman, and
liked Cosmo as no respectable soul could help liking him. It had
not yet entered into him to make him useful. That same night,
however, he began to ask himself whether he might not make Cosmo
serve instead of hindering his hope, and very soon had thought the
matter out. He was by no means too delicate to talk at once about
his love, but would say nothing of it until he had made more sure
of Cosmo, and good his ground by sowing another crop first: he must
make himself something in the eyes of the youth, plant himself
firmly in his estimation, cause his idea of him to blossom; and
for the sake of this he must first of all understand the boy!
Nor was it long before the doctor imagined he did understand the
boy; and indeed, sceptical as both his knowledge of himself and of
the world had made him, he did so far understand him as to believe
him as innocent of evil as the day he was born.
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