"Never mind. Hah! I am hungry. But look here, Pussy--more sugar, please--and milk. It's all your fault." "It is not, papa," said Veronica, colouring a little. "It was through your buying this cottage." "Well, how was I to know he wanted it? Suppose the grounds do run like a wedge into the estate. Hang the blackguardly Ahab! Can't a poor miserable Naboth like myself have his own vineyard without his wanting it for a garden of herbs? Bitter herbs I'll make them for him!" "No, you will not, papa." "Yes, I will, tyrant. The next thing will be his confounded Jezebel of a wife setting him to--" "Papa! I cannot sit here and listen to you," cried Veronica, flushing deeply now. "Lady Pinemount is a sweet, lovable woman." "How do you know?" "Everybody says so." "Including her son?" "Papa dear!" cried the girl, with her eyes filling with tears. "There, my dear, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but the old man will never consent to it, and I'm going to forbid Mr Rolleston the house." Veronica was silent, but such a look of hopeless misery came into her face that the Doctor got up from his chair and went and knelt on one knee by his child's chair, drawing her beautiful head down on his shoulder and softly stroking her cheek. "And you--after turning up this pretty little nose at all the gallant young Spanish dons and settlers about the Pampas--to come and strike your colours like this, Very! I say, are you so very fond of him?" "I--I think so, papa; I can't help it." "Humph! But he's an Englishman born and bred, and you're half a Spaniard, Very." "But you are an Englishman, papa." "I suppose so. But thirty years in South America seem to have altered me. Yah! hammer away. What a blackguardly trick of his father!" "Don't talk about it, papa. Mr Rolleston said Lord Pinemount was furious with his steward for not bidding higher and buying this estate." "More fool he! I'd have bid his head off. He'd never have got it." "And he was very angry, too, because you refused his offer afterwards to take it off your hands." "I don't care for his anger. I came over to England to end my days in peace. I bought the Sandleighs, and I mean to keep it." "Papa!" "There, then--there, don't cry, and I will not make use of bad language about that hoarding; but if this is the behaviour of an English nobleman, I'm glad I'm plain Doctor Salado. Now breakfast; and my coffee's cold." VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO. HIS LORDSHIP IS ANGRY. "I say it's a shame, father, and a disgrace to you." "And I say you are a confounded insolent young puppy; and if you dare to speak to me again like that--" "Oh, hush, Edward dear! Denis, my boy, pray don't!" "But I shall be ashamed to go about the place, mamma. It is so mean and petty." "How dare you, sir! how dare you!" cried Lord Pinemount. "Don't dictate to me. I've put up with too much, and I mean to end it all. How dare he--a confounded Yankee!" "Doctor Salado is an English gentleman, father."