“We were, my dear boy, we were. And why should not you be as happy?”
“Hem!” ejaculated Charley; and then firmly: “because, sir, I believe that there is not such a woman as my dear mother upon earth.”
The old gentleman shaded his eyes for a few moments with his disengaged hand.
“Frankly again, father,” said the young man, “is there a lady in view?”
“Well, no, my dear boy, not exactly; but I certainly was talking with Bray over our port last week, when we perhaps did agree that you and Laura seemed cut out for one another; but, my dear boy, don’t think I want to play the tyrant and choose for you. They do say, though, that the lady has a leaning your way; and no wonder, Charley, no wonder!”
“I don’t know very much about Laura,” said Charley musingly. “She’s a fine girl certainly; looks rather Jewish, though, with those big red lips of hers and that hooked nose.”
“My dear Charley!” remonstrated Sir Philip.
“But she rides well—sits that great rawboned mare of hers gloriously. I saw her take a leap on the last day I was out—one that I took too, about half an hour before that fall; but hang me if it wasn’t to avoid being outdone by a woman! I really wanted to shirk it.”
“Good, good!” laughed Sir Philip.
“But she’s fast, and not feminine, to my way of thinking,” said Charley, gazing up as he spoke at the picture above the mantelpiece, and comparing the lady in question with the truly gentle mother whom he had almost worshipped. “She burst out with a hoarse ‘Bravo!’ when she saw me safely landed, and then shouted, ‘Well done, Charley!’ and I felt so nettled, that I pulled out my cigar-case, and asked her to take one.”