He—Jack—had given her that dog as a puppy, and no power on earth could make her part with him. As she turned her eyes from the window, she noted his speaking look, and as she bent to caress him, a tear fell on his rough gray neck.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and in rushed Mary the maid.
Mary seemed about half daft. She was waving aloft a copy of the Times, and scarce could speak for excitement. But she managed to point to a certain column.
“What is it, Mary? I cannot see.”
“Which it’s our boy Jack as is mentioned for conspeakyewous bravery. Aren’t you glad and proud?”
“Glad and proud? O Mary! silly child. And I am to be the bride of another. Nay, father insists that I shall give Sir Digby his answer to-night at the ball.”
“An’ I should do it, missus; that I should. I’d put it in fine polite English, but I’d put it straight, all the same. When he knelt before me,—‘Jump up, old Granger,’ I should say. ‘Right about face. Shoulder hip. Quick march. I loves another, and I cannot marry thee.’”
“O Mary,” said Gerty, smiling in spite of herself, “how you talk! Hush, child; not another word. I’m bound to make my father happy, and—I will.”
The ball to which Gerty and her father were going that evening was Sir Digby’s. This gentleman possessed both a town and a country house; but if the truth must be told, he was at present absolutely living on his future prospects.