She stood right up before the great soldier of India, and astonished him by addressing him in the very words she had rehearsed to Elva.
Col. Anglesea threw himself back in his chair, and gave way to a peal of laughter. And when he recovered his breath, patted her on the head and said, mockingly:
“You will forgive me, and thank Odalite, when you discover that we have got married on purpose to leave the gallant young middy to you, so that you shall not be an old maid.”
“Thank you, sir. No one shall make a match for me. And since my peaceful mission to you has failed, I must leave you to be taken in hand by the gentleman you have robbed. He will call you to a strict account.”
So saying, the small young lady threw up her head, and with great dignity marched out of the room.
Her next effort in the absent lover’s cause was with Odalite herself.
She found her eldest sister in their mother’s room, where a colored maidservant was engaged in unpacking a case just arrived from New York, and carefully extricating from its interior a rich white dress of velvet and swansdown, garnished with orange blossoms, and which was elaborately folded, with white tissue paper between every surface.
“Be careful, Net. The veil must be somewhere there,” said Mrs. Force, who was standing over the case, watching the work.
“I reckon it is in this square bandbox at the bottom,” suggested the woman.
“Get it up very carefully, then.”