How precocious these young American girls were, to be sure! How very early they were married!
At this point the colonel lighted a fresh cigar, strolled out upon the frozen lawn, and sat down on a rustic seat, under the branches of an old yew tree, from which he had a view of the bay, that here spread out from the foot of the hill to the distant horizon.
It was not, however, to look at the prospect of nature before his eyes, but to contemplate the prospect of the future in his imagination, that he sat there, and smoked and reflected.
“The game is in my own hands,” he said to himself. “The daughter is governed entirely by the mother, whom she adores. And she must appear to act from her own free will and for her own pleasure, in order to obtain the consent of her father, who, forsooth, will sacrifice his own family ambition to his child’s happiness.
“This is the third of December,” he mused, “and the young fellow is expected to be home at Christmas. There is no time to be lost. I must turn the screws on my lady. There shall be a New Year’s wedding at Mondreer, but Mr. Leonidas Force shall not be the happy bridegroom.”
CHAPTER V
GREENBUSHES
Glad voices broke in upon Anglesea’s brooding.