Val was seated on the third rung of the step-ladder when her father made this announcement. She sprang lightly from her perch now, and ran to his side.
"I won't go anywhere without you, dad; so that's settled. Poor old man!—dear old man!"
She put her arms round his neck, and his white moustache and beard swept across her soft, peach-like cheek.
"But I hate going out in the evening, Val. I'm getting an old man—sixty next birthday, my dear—and I work hard all day. There's no place so sweet to me in the evening as this worm-eaten, old armchair;—I should find myself lost in a crowd. Time was when I was the gayest of the gay. People used to speak of me as the life and soul of every party I went to, but that time is over for me. Val; for you it is beginning."
"You are mistaken, father. I perch myself on the arm of this wretched, worm-eaten, old chair, and stay here with you, or I go into society with you. It's all the same to me—you can please yourself."
"Don't you know that you are a very saucy lass, miss?"
"Am I? I really don't care—I go with you, or I stay with you—that's understood. Dad—father dear—that's always to be the way, you understand. You and I are to be always together—all our lives. You quite see what I mean?"
"Yes, my darling. But some day you will have a husband. Val. I want you to marry, and have a good husband, child; and then we'll see if your old father still comes first."
Valentine laughed gaily.
"We'll see," she repeated. "Father, if you are not awfully busy, I must read you this bit out of Roderick Random—listen, is not it droll?"