The young lady and gentleman would be delighted. And so now introductions were complete; and soon the most perfect and home-like friendship reigned between the manse and The Cañon, as the glen villa was called.
But for his daughter Mina, Captain Reeves would have been a somewhat lonely man, despite the beauty of his gardens and all his wild and romantic surroundings, for his wife had been dead now for some years. He had formerly resided in Aberdeen; but his health breaking down temporarily, he had come here, and was already as well as ever he had been in his life, so strong and life-giving are the breezes that blow over the Highland hills.
* * * * *
I have no great desire to describe little Mina’s beauty, though in my eyes she was very charming indeed. But there are different tastes in beauty, just as there are in straw hats or fancy waistcoats. If the reader, then, wonders what Mina was like, let him just imagine to himself the loveliest and most innocent-looking girl he happens to know, and let her pose as Mina.
Of course she and I became great friends, because, whatever else I may be, I am always frank; and I do think children like frankness. Well, I am always frank and I am always merry.
But Don Miguel’s story is a somewhat strange though not a very unusual one away up north, and I may best tell it briefly here.
I may say this, to begin with, that there really is a kind of freemasonry between sailors, else why should Reeves have told me poor Miguel’s history after only a fortnight’s acquaintance?
I may mention, too, that the nephew himself had gone away—I shall tell you whither presently. I happened to see the parting betwixt him and bonnie wee Mina, and it was indeed a sorrowful one.
She hung around his neck in an abandon of childish grief and tears.