“Nonsense!” shortly interrupted the old lady—“that child! Don’t be profane, Alick. Have some reverence for innocence like hers.”
Mr. Alexander fidgetted and made no answer.
“But I didn’t mean to scold you, dear; only I would have you respect holy childhood, and let a girl be a child as long as possible. I hope and believe that you and Anna will make a happy couple. When you see her, of course you will say everything that is kind to her from me; and be sure you cannot say too much. You will either prevail on them to come immediately to us, or you will stay with them until they are ready to do so,” said Mrs. Lyon.
Alexander agreed to everything she proposed.
And then their interview was interrupted by the entrance of some visitors.
The next morning Alexander went up the country to old Lyon Hall, where he used his powers of persuasion to such good purpose as to prevail on Miss Anna, and of course on her grandfather, to return with him immediately to Richmond.
“If he will not go back with us, we must go with him, I suppose, grandpa. It would be a pity to deprive Aunt Lyon of her son’s society by keeping him here, so soon after his arrival from foreign parts,” said Miss Anna, expressing a sentiment with which the old gentleman sincerely sympathized.
So the whole party reached the city by the following Saturday.
The Christmas holidays were spent as merrily as ever before. Drusilla was brought from school to join in the festivities of the season, and she was loaded with presents and caresses.
Mr. Richard Hammond also came, and was quite as much up to every species of fun and frolic as ever he had been in his earlier boyhood.