"Never forget," I answered sternly, "that he denied himself an education in order that you might become what you are."
While I spoke the door of the house opened again, and the old gentleman she had alluded to came gingerly down the steps. He had a small, wizened face, and he wore a fur-lined overcoat, in which it was evident that he still suffered from the cold.
"This is my brother and my sister, Mr. Cottrel," said Jessy, as he came slowly toward us.
He bowed with a pompous manner, and stood twirling the chain of his eye-glasses. "Yes, yes, I have heard of your brother. His name is well known already," he answered. "I congratulate, sir," he added, "not the 'man who got rich quickly,' as I've heard you called, but the fortunate brother of a beautiful sister."
"What a perfectly horrid old man," remarked Sally, some minutes later, as we drove back again. "I think, Ben, we'll have to take the little sister. She's a beauty."
"If she wasn't so everlastingly cold and quiet."
"It suits her style—that little precise way she has. There's a look about her like one of Perugino's saints."
Then the carriage stopped at the office, and I returned, with a high heart, to the game.