"Of course we're always glad to see you," said Philip in his most genial manner; "and now, if you've anything to say to me about business, the sooner you begin the better.—You and the girls needn't stay for dessert, Georgy. Almonds and raisins can't be much of a novelty to you; and as none of you take any wine, there's not much to stop for. George and I will come in to tea."
The ladies departed, by no means sorry to return to their Berlin-wool and piano. Diana took up her work with that saintly patience with which she performed all the duties of her position; and Charlotte seated herself before the piano, and began to play little bits of waltzes, and odds and ends of polkas, in a dreamy mood, and with a slurring over of dominant bass notes, which would have been torture to a musician's ear.
She was wondering whether Valentine would call that evening, Christmas-eve—a sort of occasion for congratulation of some kind from her lover, she fancied. It was the first Christmas-eve on which she had been "engaged." She looked back to the same period last year, and remembered herself sitting in that very room strumming on that very piano, and unconscious that there was such a creature as Valentine Hawkehurst upon this earth. And, strange to say, even in that benighted state, she had been tolerably happy.
"Now, George," said Mr. Sheldon, when the brothers had filled their glasses and planted their chairs on the opposite sides of the hearth-rug, "what's the nature of this business that you want to talk about?"
"Well, it is a business of considerable importance, in which you are only indirectly concerned. The actual principal in the affair is your stepdaughter, Miss Halliday."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. You know how you have always ridiculed my fancy for hunting up heirs-at-law and all that kind of thing, and you know how I have held on, hoping against hope, starting on a new scent when the old scent failed, and so on."
"And you have got a chance at last, eh?"
"I believe that I have, and a tolerably good one; and I think you will own that it is rather extraordinary that my first lucky hit should bring luck your way."
"That is to say, to my stepdaughter?" remarked Mr. Sheldon, without any appearance of astonishment.