Excerpt from The Lovable Meddler The Doctor laid aside his paper. He was a shrewd and kindly faced Scot, much given to marked peculiarities of diction and a disrespect for his final g's. A heavy thatch of white hair above a clear, ruddy skin made him picturesque. A pair of keen, humorous blue eyes told their tale of vitality. Set beneath shaggy brows, they twinkled or shot fire in quick succession and warned the chance offender that the electric current of his humor was a swiftly alternating one. Leave the lass to me! Said he grimly and presently his deep voice boomed through the hallway. Dinna say ye are not comin' to my rose party, lass! What! None of ye comin'? Busy, eh? Leddy Rose, I'm losin' patience with ye. Ye're that busy and clannish, all of ye, that ye might live on t'other side of the world for all we ever see or hear of ye. And ye haven't been to see my Jeannie for months and months! Dinna ye ever rest a bit? Mark ye, lass, I'm still the family doctor and I can fix up a verra fine case and pack ye off to bed to rest for a month if I have a mind to! Dinna fail me, Rose, lass, he wheedled, a caress in his voice. 'tis no rose-party at all Without the Leddy Rose herself. Guid, that's a verra fair compromise. Dinna fail me. He hung up the receiver, his face radiant. She'll come for a while early, he told his wife and daughter. Trust your artful old father, Jeannie, that she winna get away. Well, Jamie, my lad, what's on vour mind, eh? James, the Scotch gardener, halted at the foot of the veranda steps, pulling his cap from a grizzled thicket of hair. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.