"He'll never sign the pledge."
"Not if I ask him to, Mrs. O'Farrall, ask him on bended knee?"
Mrs. O'Farrall looked frightened, apoplectic, and confused. Blizzard lifted his heavy eyebrows, then a smile began to brighten his face.
"Mrs. O'Farrall," said he, "blessings on your old red face! For just this minute for the first time since I lost them, the fact that I have no knees to bend escaped me. Your religion teaches you that the Lord is good to the repentant sinner. Madam, he is!" And then he began to call in a loud voice:
"Rose--Rose, run down a minute. I clean forgot that I hadn't any legs."
She came, fresh, young, and lovely. What if she had played the traitor--thrown her cap over the wind-mills? These things are not serious matters to her sex--when the men they love are kind. And then Lichtenstein had forgiven her, and pretended to box her ears--and then she had had enough tragedy and jealousy crowded into a few months to atone for greater crimes and lapses than hers.
XLIX
"I understand," said Blizzard sternly, "that when you learned I was your father, you refused to proceed further against me."
"Yes, sir," said Bubbles.