“Nay, come,” cried the farmer; yet, as he peered through his spectacles into the bright eyes sheltered by the fiery fringe, he surmised a deep-lying heaviness in the brain behind them; and he noticed now for the first time how pale a face they were set in, and how gray the marks were underneath them.
“The voyage hasn't done you much good, either,” he said. “Why, you aren't even sunburnt.”
“No? Well, you see, I'm such a bad sailor. I spent all my time in the cabin, that's how it was.”
“Yet the Argus says you had such a good voyage?”
“Yes? I expect they always say that. It was a beast of a voyage, if you ask me, and quite as bad as late nights for you, though not nearly so nice.”
“Ah, well, we'll soon set you up, my dear. This is the place to make a good job of you, if ever there was one. But where have you been staying since you landed, Miriam? It's upwards of twenty-four hours now.”
The guest smiled.
“Ah, that's tellings. With some people who came out with me—some swells that I knew in the West End, if you particularly want to know; not that I'm much nuts on 'em, either.”
“Don't you be inquisitive, father,” broke in John William from the sofa. It was his first remark since he had sat down.
“Well, perhaps I mustn't bother you with any more questions now,” said Mr. Teesdale to the girl; “but I shall have a hundred to ask you later on. To think that you're Mr. Oliver's daughter after all! Ay, and I see a look of your mother and all now and then. They did well to send you out to us, and get you right away from them late hours and that nasty society—though here comes one that'll want you to tell her all about that by-and-by.”