"
"If she can't choose, all the better."
"Yes, but he will stand there entreating her to choose, and Lavinia
will pull on that side."
"I am glad she is not on my side; she is capable of ruining an
excellent cause. The day Lavinia gets into your boat it capsizes.
But she had better be careful," said the Doctor. "I will have no
treason in my house!"
"I suspect she will be careful; for she is at bottom very much afraid
of you."
"They are both afraid of me--harmless as I am!" the Doctor answered.
"And it is on that that I build--on the salutary terror I inspire!"
CHAPTER XIV
He wrote his frank letter to Mrs. Montgomery, who punctually answered
it, mentioning an hour at which he might present himself in the
Second Avenue. She lived in a neat little house of red brick, which
had been freshly painted, with the edges of the bricks very sharply
marked out in white. It has now disappeared, with its companions, to
make room for a row of structures more majestic. There were green
shutters upon the windows, without slats, but pierced with little
holes, arranged in groups; and before the house was a diminutive
yard, ornamented with a bush of mysterious character, and surrounded
by a low wooden paling, painted in the same green as the shutters.
The place looked like a magnified baby-house, and might have been
taken down from a shelf in a toy-shop. Dr. Sloper, when he went to
call, said to himself, as he glanced at the objects I have
enumerated, that Mrs.
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