He was a fleshy wide-girthed gentleman,
with a bald head, and a face as radiant as the full moon.
"I was just asking the doctor when I was to have the honour of making the
little widow Mrs. Crump?" he threw out at last, with a laugh that shook him
from head to foot. "It is not good for man to live alone, eh, Major?"
"That sentence is sufficient to prove the divine inspiration of the
Scriptures," returned the Major, warmly, while the doctor blushed and
stammered, as he always did, at the rector's mild matrimonial jokes. It
was twenty years since Mr. Blake began teasing Dr. Crump about his
bachelorship, and to them both the subject was as fresh as in its
beginning.
"I--I declare I haven't seen the lady for a week," protested the doctor,
"and then she sent for me."
"Sent for you?" roared Mr. Blake. "Ah, doctor, doctor!"
"She sent for me because she had heart trouble," returned the doctor,
indignantly. The lady's name was never mentioned between them.
The rector laughed until the tears started.
"Ah, you're a success with the ladies," he exclaimed, as he drew out a
neatly ironed handkerchief and shook it free from its folds, "and no
wonder--no wonder! We'll be having an epidemic of heart trouble next."
Then, as he saw the doctor wince beneath his jest, his kindly heart
reproached him, and he gravely turned to politics and the dignity of
nations.
The two friends were faithful Democrats, though the rector always began his
very forcible remarks with: "A minister knows nothing of politics, and I am
but a minister of the Gospel.
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