"Sophia," he began, with much severity, "you say you have only your old father in the world, and I'm bound to say you seem to find it little enough. My dear, are you aware that you've just been disappointing my dearest hopes?"
"Don't say that!"
"I begin to think I mustn't say anything. I have brought you up carefully, instructing you in all polite learning, and even in some of the abstruser sciences. I have meant you, all along, to be the ornament of your sex, and now—the devil take it!—you prefer, after all, to be an ornament of the other! I intended you, by your accomplishments, to make that young man look foolish."
"And I assure you, father dear, he did look foolish this morning, and again this afternoon in the summer-house."
"Now, upon my soul, Sophia! I call your attention to the fact I've been suspecting ever since you began to speak, that you're at the bottom of all to-day's mischief. If that unfortunate youth hadn't been making love to you when he should have been attending to the bees, the chances are they would never have taken it into their heads to swarm upon that accursed arch, and consequently…"
There was nothing which Captain Runacles enjoyed so thoroughly as to discover the connection between effects and their causes. When such a chance offered, it was a common experience with him to be drawn into prolixity. But he was pained and surprised, nevertheless, after twenty minutes' discourse (in which he proved Sophia, and Sophia alone, to be responsible for the disasters of the day), to find that she had dropped asleep. He looked down for a minute or so upon her closed lids, then moved to the rail of the balcony and ejaculated under his breath:
"O woman—woman! Wise art thou as the dove, and about as harmless as the serpent!"
He considered the heavens for some moments, and added with some tartness but with a far-off look at the stars, as though aiming the remark at the late Mrs. Runacles:
"Her charm, at any rate, is not derived from her mother!"
He turned abruptly and considered her as she slept under the stars. Stooping after a minute or two, and lifting her very gently, he bore her into the house and down to her own room. As they descended the ladder from the attic, she stirred and opened her eyes drowsily: