“You have got pretty hair, he says,” said Georgina.
“This is prettier,” said the child, as she lifted the amber beads of her necklace and displayed them proudly.
“They are very pretty too, and real amber.”
“Amber and gold,” said the girl, proudly.
“Now she looks like the picture of her,” said Lady Vyner, in French; “she positively is pretty. The horrid dress disfigured her altogether.”
Sir Gervais entered the room hastily at this moment, and whispered a few words in his wife’s ear, concluding aloud: “Let her go to Ada; she is in the garden. You can go this way, Kitty,” said he, opening one of the French windows; “cross over the grass to that little wooden gate yonder, and the path will bring you to the garden. You’ll find a young lady there, who would like to know you.”
“May I have my bonnet?” asked she, wistfully.
“No; go without it. You’ll be freer!”
“I must ask you to let me show you this old man. He has submitted me to a cross-examination so sharp and searching for the last half-hour, that I really want a little rest.”
Whatever absurdity the pretension of dress had thrown around the girl, nothing of the same kind was observable in the appearance of the old man, who, in his long coat of bluish grey frieze, and with his snow-white hair falling on his shoulders, stood before them. His air, too, was thoroughly respectful; but neither abashed by the presence in which he found himself, nor, stranger still for an Irish peasant, at all excited to any show, of curiosity by the rich objects about.