“Yes, my boy, yes, we’ve found her; but do you know I feel rather confused and puzzled. I—I thought our Maude had gone off with that handsome looking scoundrel who played the organ outside our house.”
“Well, so she did,” cried Tom; “I see it all now. Here he is, dad.”
“No, no, my boy; don’t be so foolish. I want to know why it’s Charley Melton, and not that Italian fellow?”
“Why, governor, can’t you see through it?”
“No, my boy. It’s all a puzzle to me.”
“Nonsense, dad, Charley made a postman of that organ-grinder. Now do you twig?”
“And—and a post-office of the organ? I think I am beginning to see.”
“What was I to do?” said the young husband, appealingly. “I had been abroad, and tried to forget her, but it was of no use. I was forbidden the house, and at last I learned that this marriage was to come off. I dared not trust the servants, so I practised this ruse. But there, it’s all over now. You forgive me, sir, do you not?”
“Well, yes, my boy,” said Lord Barmouth, who was sitting fondling his daughter’s hand. “I think you are quite right. I should have done the same, for I was a devil of a—Don’t fidget, Maude, my darling. I’ll talk her ladyship round.”
“She’d rather it had been the organ-grinder,” choked and coughed Viscount Diphoos, while his sister, blushing and happy, kept shaking her finger at his mirthful face.