“Now, Claudia,” he said with earnest, remonstrating eyes, “you are not persuading that child into this rich marriage against her inclinations?”
Mrs. Annandale looked for a moment six feet high—so portentous was her dignity as she drew herself up. “I” she said, in freezing accents, “persuade!” with an infusion of contempt. “My good sir, I knew nothing whatever of his proposal of marriage, till Arabella saw fit to confide in me!”
“I beg pardon, I am sure—” began Captain Howard.
“I disregard her inclination—I who have sought nothing but her happiness since her mother’s death!” said Mrs. Annandale.
“True, true, my sister. And I always gratefully remember this.”
He crossed the room, sat down beside her, and took her hand. It was a tiny wrinkled hand, soft and unsubstantial, suggestive of something uncanny,—a mouse or a young chicken, that does not lend itself to hearty pressure. Captain Howard’s gingerly touch was more as if he felt her pulse than clasped her hand.
She permitted herself to be reconciled, so benign was her triumph.
“They settled it between them. I knew nothing of it. It was during the storm. I was not in here. I went to my room for my sal volatile partly, and partly because I could not, without screaming, see the lightning capering about like a streak of hell turned loose on earth, and when I had done with my vocalizes,”—she could afford to laugh at herself on a fair day like this—“and came back, lo! here were Corydon and Phyllis, smiling at each other, as sentimental as you please!”
Captain Howard laughed with responsive satisfaction. It was a relief to him to know that his beautiful daughter would be so safely settled in the world—that her path would be smoothed by all that wealth and station could give. He had known Mervyn all the young man’s life, and his father and grandfather before him, and liked him well. He thought him safe, steady, conservative, of good parts, and a capable officer. Doubtless, however, he would sell out of the army when he should come into the title and estate, and Captain Howard was not sorry for this, despite his own military predilections. He was glad that Arabella’s lot should be cast in the pleasant paths of English country life, instead of following the British drumbeat around the world. He was sensible, too, of a great pleasure in the fact that her beauty, her cleverness, her careful education,—for learning was the fad of the day among women of fashion, and Miss Howard added to considerable solid acquirements musical and linguistic accomplishments of no mean order,—would all be conspicuously placed in a setting worthy of their value and calculated to enhance their lustre. She would embellish the station as no Lady Mervyn heretofore had ever graced it. As he sat gazing, half-smiling, into the fire, he could hear echoes from the future—“The beautiful and gifted Lady Mervyn,” she would be called; “the clever Lady Mervyn,”—“the fascinating and accomplished Lady Mervyn!” Life had been good to her; the most extravagant wishes would be fulfilled—wealth and station, love and beauty, grace and goodness would all be hers. The father’s heart swelled with gratification and paternal pride.
“How is she freakish?” he asked, suddenly.