Brooke's Daughter: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"I think harm of him—unjustly, perhaps. I am not so sure that I know of any. I only want you to keep your eyes open. Good-bye, old man."

And Caspar Brooke gave his friend's hand such a pressure that Maurice went away satisfied that Lesley's father, at any rate, and in spite of protest, was upon his side.

Miss Brooke came into dinner at the last moment, so Mr. Brooke and his daughter were saved the embarrassment of dining alone—for it could not be denied that it would have been embarrassing after the recent scene, if there had been no third person present to whom they could address remarks. Miss Brooke's mind was full of the meeting which she had attended, and she gave them a glowing account of it. Lesley spoke very little, but her face was happier than it had been for a long time, although her eyes were red. Mr. Brooke looked at her a good deal in a furtive kind of way, and with more interest than usual. She was certainly a good-looking girl. But that was not all. Caspar Brooke had passed the period of caring for good looks and nothing else. Lesley had spirit, intelligence, honesty, endurance, as well as beauty. Well, she might make a good wife for Maurice after all. For although he had declared that Kenyon was "a shocking bad match," he was inclined to think in his own heart that Kenyon was too good for his daughter Lesley.

However, he had a soft corner in his big heart for the little girl who used to sit on his knee and refuse to go to sleep without his good-night kiss, and he was pleased when she came up to him before he went out that evening, and timidly put her face up to be kissed, as if she had still been the child he loved. She had never done that before; and he took it more as a sign of gratitude for permission to write to Lady Alice than actual affection for himself.

"Are you writing your letter?" he said, touching her cheek half playfully, half caressingly.

"Yes," said Lesley, looking down. "Is there—have you—no message?"

"Why should I have a message? Your mother and I correspond through our lawyer, my dear. But—well, yes, if you like to say that I am sorry for this mistake of the last few months, you may do so. I have no doubt that she has missed your letters, and I should like her to understand that the correspondence was not discontinued at my desire. I regret the mistake."

He said it formally and gravely, and in a particularly icy tone of voice; but Lesley was for the moment satisfied. She went back to her writing-desk and took up her pen. She had already written a couple of sheets, but in them her father's name had scarcely been mentioned. Now, however, she wrote:—

"You may be wondering, dearest mamma, why I am writing to you in this way, because you told me that I must not write, and I have put off my explanation until almost the end. I could not bear to be without your letters any longer, and to-day I said so to my father. I could not help telling him, because I was so miserable. And he wishes me to tell you that it was all a mistake, and he is very sorry; he never meant to put a stop to our writing to each other, and he is very, very sorry that we thought so." Lesley's version was not so dignified as her father had intended it to be. "He was terribly distressed when he found out that I was not writing to you; and called himself all sorts of names—a tyrant and an ogre, and asked what we must have thought of him! He was really very much grieved about it, and never meant us to leave off writing. So now I shall write as often as I please, and you, dearest mamma, will write to me too.

"There is one thing I must say, darling mother, and you will not be angry with me for saying it, will you? I think father must be different now from what he was in the old days; or else—perhaps there may have been a mistake about him, such as there has been about the letters! For he is so clever and gentle and kind—a little sarcastic now and then, but always good! The poor people at the Club (which I told you about in the last sheet) just adore him; and they say that he has saved many of them from worse than death. And you never told me about his book, dear mamma—'The Unexplored.' It is such a beautiful book—surely you think so, although you think ill of the writer? Of course you have read it? I have read it four times, I think; and I want to ask him about some parts of it, but I have never dared—I don't think he even knows that I have read it. It has gone through more than twelve editions, and has been translated into French and German, so you must have seen it. And Mr. Kenyon says it sells by thousands in America.