“I hope, ma’am, the present residence,
my mother’s house, appears to you a convenient
place of abode?”
“Not par-tic-er-er-ly; I want to go home.”
“A natural and laudable desire, ma’am;
but one which, notwithstanding, I shall do my best
to oppose. I reckon on being able to get out of
you a little of that precious commodity called amusement,
which mamma and Mistress Snowe there fail to yield
me.”
“I shall have to go with papa soon: I shall
not stay long at your mother’s.”
“Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure.
I have a pony on which you shall ride, and no end
of books with pictures to show you.”
“Are you going to live here now?”
“I am. Does that please you? Do you
like me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I think you queer.”
“My face, ma’am?”
“Your face and all about you: You have
long red hair.”
“Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls
it auburn, or golden, and so do all her friends.
But even with my ‘long red hair’”
(and he waved his mane with a sort of triumph—tawny
he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud
of the leonine hue), “I cannot possibly be queerer
than is your ladyship.”
“You call me queer?”
“Certainly.”
(After a pause), “I think I shall go to bed.”
“A little thing like you ought to have been
in bed many hours since; but you probably sat up in
the expectation of seeing me?”
“No, indeed.”
“You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure
of my society. You knew I was coming home, and
would wait to have a look at me.”
“I sat up for papa, and not for you.”
“Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be
a favourite: preferred before papa soon, I daresay.”
She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she
seemed hesitating whether Graham’s deserts entitled
him to the same attention, when he caught her up with
one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft
above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up
on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The
suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action
were too much.
“For shame, Mr. Graham!” was her indignant
cry, “put me down!”—and when
again on her feet, “I wonder what you would think
of me if I were to treat you in that way, lifting
you with my hand” (raising that mighty member)
“as Warren lifts the little cat.”
So saying, she departed.
The playmates.
Mr. Home stayed two days. During his visit he
could not be prevailed on to go out: he sat all
day long by the fireside, sometimes silent, sometimes
receiving and answering Mrs. Bretton’s chat,
which was just of the proper sort for a man in his
morbid mood—not over-sympathetic, yet not
too uncongenial, sensible; and even with a touch of
the motherly—she was sufficiently his senior
to be permitted this touch.
