“Yes, guardian,” she said, smiling at him, as he turned to look at her anxiously.
“Hah! Come, that’s better,” he cried; and he set down the poker and rubbed his hands softly, as he gazed once more thoughtfully at the fire. “That sounds more as if you felt at home, and I shall dare to tell you what I have done. You see, I have been obliged to beg of you not to go out for a bit without me, and I have not liked to propose taking you of an evening to any place of entertainment—not a theatre, of course yet awhile, but a concert, say.”
“Oh no, Mr Garstang!” she said, hastily, with the tears coming to her eyes.
He coughed, and looked at her in a perplexed way.
“Oh no, guardian,” she said, smiling sadly.
“Hah! that’s better. Of course not; of course not. Forgive me for even referring to it. But er—you will not feel hurt at what I have done?”
She looked at him anxiously.
“Yes,” he said, speaking as if he had been suddenly damped. “I ought not to have done it yet. It will seem as if I were making it appear that you will have to stop some time.”
“What have you done?” asked Kate, gravely.
“Well, my child, I know how musical you used to be, and as I was passing the maker’s to-day the thought struck me that you would like a piano. ‘It would make the place less dull for her,’ I said, and—don’t be hurt, my dear—I—I told him to send a good one in.”