There was water in the foolish little fellow’s eyes, but she kissed them dry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again. After half an hour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that Bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she could draw her arm through his, and delightedly squeeze it.
‘Now, Pa,’ said Bella, hugging him close, ‘take this lovely woman out to dinner.’
‘Where shall we go, my dear?’
‘Greenwich!’ said Bella, valiantly. ‘And be sure you treat this lovely woman with everything of the best.’
While they were going along to take boat, ‘Don’t you wish, my dear,’ said R. W., timidly, ‘that your mother was here?’
‘No, I don’t, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. I was always your little favourite at home, and you were always mine. We have run away together often, before now; haven’t we, Pa?’
‘Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was—was a little liable to it,’ repeating his former delicate expression after pausing to cough.
‘Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to have been, Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when you should have made me walk; and I often drove you in harness, when you would much rather have sat down and read your news-paper: didn’t I?’
‘Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a companion you were!’
‘Companion? That’s just what I want to be to-day, Pa.’