"Yes!" cried Nancy eagerly. "Fifty of her!" At which everybody laughed.
"And what became of the money you put in Uncle Allan's business?" asked
Gilbert with unexpected intelligence.
There was a moment's embarrassment and an exchange of glances between mother and father before he replied, "Oh! that's coming back multiplied six times over, one of these days,—Allan has a very promising project on hand just now, Admiral."
"Glad to hear it! A delightful fellow, and straight as a die. I only wish he could perform once in a while, instead of promising."
"He will if only he keeps his health, but he's heavily handicapped there, poor chap. Well, what's the verse?"
The Admiral put on his glasses, prettily assisted by Kathleen, who was on his knee and seized the opportunity to give him a French kiss when the spectacles were safely on the bridge of his nose. Whereupon he read:—
"There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
I looked, and looked, and laughed.
"It seemed so curious that she
Should cross the unknown water,
And moor herself within my room—
My daughter, O my daughter!
"Yet, by these presents, witness all,
She's welcome fifty times,
And comes consigned to Hope and Love
And common metre rhymes.
"She has no manifest but this;
No flag floats o'er the water;
She's rather new for British Lloyd's—
My daughter, O my daughter!