In a quarter of an hour they were walking up and down the quay by the Custom House, waiting for the launch to start.
“After all these years,” said Mr. Cardus, “and blind!” “Do you think that he will be much disfigured, Reginald?” “I don’t know, dear; your brother said nothing about it.” “I can hardly believe it; it seems so strange to think that he and Jeremy should have been spared out of all those people. How good God is!”
“A cynic,” replied Mr. Cardus, with a smile, “or the relations of the other people, might draw a different conclusion.”
But Dorothy was thinking how good God was to her. She was dressed in pink that morning, and
“Oh, she looked sweet
As the little pink flower that grows in the wheat.”
Dorothy neither was, nor ever would be, a pretty woman, but she was essentially a charming one. Her kindly puzzled face (and, to judge from the little wrinkles on it, she had never got to the bottom of the questions which contracted her forehead as a child), her steady blue eyes, her diminutive rounded form, and, above all, the indescribable light of goodness which shone round her like a halo, all made her charming. What did it matter if the mouth was a little wide, or the nose somewhat “tip-tilted?” Those who can look so sweet are able to dispense with such fleshly attributes as a Grecian nose or chiselled lips. At the least, they will have the best of it after youth is past; and let me remind you, my young and lovely reader, that the longer and dustier portion of life’s road winds away towards the pale horizon of our path on the farther side of the grim mile-post marked “30.”
But what made her chiefly attractive was her piquante taking manner and the chic of her presence. She was such a perfect lady.
“All aboard, if you please,” broke in the agent. “Run in the gangway!”and they were off towards the great gray vessel with a blue pennant at her top.
It was a short run, but it seemed long to Dorothy and the old gentleman with her. Bigger and bigger grew the great vessel, till at last it seemed to swallow up their tiny steamer.
“Ease her! Look out for the line there! Now haul away! Make fast!”