She turned to her father eagerly, but Mr. Gray was at his lithography, bending closely over his work, and apparently taking no heed of this reconciliation. He had done his share of duty, and so his interest had vanished.
"Father—you hear?"
"I don't care about much company—when we've nothing better to do than idle our time away, perhaps," was the far from suave reply to this.
"My daughter and yours are old friends, Mr. Gray," said Mr. Wesden, almost entreatingly.
"Mattie won't care about much company herself—and I very much doubt if—if that young person you allude to—is exactly fitting for my daughter, whose character I am anxious to model after my own ideas of what is truly womanly."
Mattie looked up at this; her father was strange in his manner that night, and he perplexed her.
"Am I not truly womanly now, sir?" she asked, with a merry little laugh. She was in high spirits that night.
Mr. Gray softened.
"You are a very good girl, Mattie—a very good girl indeed; there are only a few little alterations necessary," he added, as though he was speaking of some marble statue whose corners he might round off with a chisel at his leisure.
"And you, sir," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Wesden again, "don't think any harm of me now! The robberies—the talk with Mr. Hinchford—" she added, with a faint blush.