'I am afraid that Mr. Glaston will find my Hutch cottage deficient in these elements of decoration,' remarked the colonel.
'I wanted to talk to you about him for a long time,' said Mrs. Crawford. 'Not knowing how you might regard the subject, I did not think it well to give him too much encouragement on the voyage, George, so that perhaps he may have thought me inclined to repel him, Daireen being in my care; but I am sure that all may yet be well. Hush! who is it that is laughing so loud? they are coming this way. Ah, Mr. Markham and that little Lottie Vincent. Good gracious, how long that girl is in the field, and how well she wears her age! Doesn't she look quite juvenile?'
Colonel Gerald could not venture an answer before the young lady, who was the eldest daughter of the deputy surgeon-general, tripped up to Mrs. Crawford, and cried, clasping her four-button strawberry-ice-coloured gloves over the elder lady's plump arm, 'Dear good Mrs. Crawford, I have come to you in despair to beg your assistance. Promise me that you will do all you can to help me.' 'If your case is so bad, Lottie, I suppose I must. But what am I to do?'
'You are to make Mr. Markham promise that he will take part in our theatricals next month. He can act—I know he can act like Irving or Salvini or Terry or Mr. Bancroft or some of the others, and yet he will not promise to take any part. Could anything be more cruel?'
'Nothing, unless I were to take some part,' said Mr. Markham, laughing.
'Hush, sir,' cried the young lady, stamping her Pinet shoe upon the ground, and taking care in the action to show what a remarkably well-formed foot she possessed.
'It is cruel of you to refuse a request so offered, Mr. Markham,' said Mrs. Crawford. 'Pray allow yourself to be made amenable to reason, and make Miss Vincent happy for one evening.'
'Since you put it as a matter of reason, Mrs. Crawford, there is, I fear, no escape for me,' said Mr. Markham.
'Didn't I talk to you about reason, sir?' cried the young lady in very pretty mock anger.
'You talked about it,' said Markham, 'just as we walked about that centre bed of cactus, we didn't once touch upon it, you know. You talk very well about a subject, Miss Vincent.'