"I don't want to part with her," he said, "but it will be a good thing for us all when Essie is wed. I must try and find some decent young fellow who will be likely to take a fancy to her. Her words fret me on account of their ambition. Cherry, child."
"I wouldn't be put out if I was you, uncle," responded Cherry in her even, matter-of-fact voice. "Esther is took up with a whim, and it will pass. It's all on account of the chevalier."
"The what, child?"
"The chevalier. Oh, my sakes alive, there's the milk boiling all over the place, and my hearth done up so beautiful. Here, catch hold of this saucepan, uncle, while I fetch a cloth to wipe up. My word, ain't this provoking. I thought to get time to learn a verse or two out of the poetry book to-night; but no such luck—I'll be brushing and blacking till bed-time."
In the confusion which ensued, Helps forgot to ask Cherry whom she meant by the chevalier.
A few days after this, as Helps was coming home late, he was rather dismayed to find his daughter returning also, accompanied by a young man who was no better dressed than half the young men with whom she walked, but who had a certain air and a certain manner which smote upon the father's heart with a dull sense of apprehension.
"Essie, my girl," he said, when she had bidden her swain good-bye, and had come into the house, with her eyes sparkling and her whole face looking so bright and beautiful, that even Cherry dropped her poetry book to gaze in admiration. "Essie," said Helps, all the tenderness of the love he bore her trembling in his voice, "come here. Kiss your old father. You love him, don't you?"
"Why, dad, what a question. I should rather think I did."
"You wouldn't hurt him now, Essie? You wouldn't break his heart, for instance?"
"I break your heart, dad? Is it likely? Now, what can the old man be driving at?" she said, looking across at Cherry.