“What a dear, sweet creature it is,” cried Laura. “How sleek and how graceful! I cannot understand how people could be afraid of anything so beautiful.”
“If you please, marm,” said the carman, touching his skin cap, “he out with his paw between the bars as we stood in the station yard, and if I 'adn't pulled my mate Bill back it would ha' been a case of kingdom come. It was a proper near squeak, I can tell ye.”
“I never saw anything more lovely,” continued Laura, loftily overlooking the remarks of the driver. “It has been a very great pleasure to me to see it, and I hope that you will tell Mr. Haw so if you see him, Robert.”
“The horses are very restive,” said her brother. “Perhaps, Laura, if you have seen enough, it would be as well to let them go.”
She bowed in the regal fashion which she had so suddenly adopted. Robert shouted the order, the driver sprang up, his comrades let the horses go, and away rattled the waggon and the trolly with half the Tamfielders streaming vainly behind it.
“Is it not wonderful what money can do?” Laura remarked, as they knocked the snow from their shoes within the porch. “There seems to be no wish which Mr. Haw could not at once gratify.”
“No wish of yours, you mean,” broke in her father. “It's different when he is dealing with a wrinkled old man who has spent himself in working for his children. A plainer case of love at first sight I never saw.”
“How can you be so coarse, papa?” cried Laura, but her eyes flashed, and her teeth gleamed, as though the remark had not altogether displeased her.
“For heaven's sake, be careful, Laura!” cried Robert. “It had not struck me before, but really it does look rather like it. You know how you stand. Raffles Haw is not a man to play with.”
“You dear old boy!” said Laura, laying her hand upon his shoulder, “what do you know of such things? All you have to do is to go on with your painting, and to remember the promise you made the other night.”