"Your friend Miss Paget looks like a countess," he said one day to Charlotte. "I thought girls generally pitched upon some plain homely young woman for their pet companion, but you seem to have chosen the handsomest girl in the school."
"Yes, she is very handsome, is she not? I wish some of your rich City men would marry her, papa."
Miss Halliday consented to call her mother's husband "papa," though the caressing name seemed in a manner to stick in her throat. She had loved that blustrous good-tempered Tom Halliday so very dearly, and it was only to please poor Georgy that she brought herself to address any other man by the name that had been his.
"My City men have something better to do than to marry a young woman without a sixpence," answered Mr. Sheldon. "Why don't you try to catch one of them for yourself?"
"I don't like City men," said Charlotte quickly; and then she blushed, and added apologetically, "at least not the generality of City men, papa."
Diana had waited until her destiny was settled before answering Valentine Hawkehurst's letter; but she wrote to him directly she was established at the Lawn, and told him the change in her plans.
"I think papa had better let me come to see him at his lodgings," she said, "wherever they may be; for I should scarcely care about Mr. Sheldon seeing him. No one here knows anything definite about my history; and as it is just possible Mr. Sheldon may have encountered my father somehow or other, it would be as well for him to keep clear of this house. I could not venture to say this to papa myself, but perhaps you could suggest it without offending him. You see I have grown very worldly-wise, and am learning to protect my own interests in the spirit which you have so instilled into me. I don't know whether that sort of spirit is likely to secure one's happiness, but I have no doubt it is the wisest and best for this world."
Miss Paget could not refrain from an occasional sneer when she wrote to her old companion. He never returned her sneers, or noticed them. His letters were always frank, friendly, and brotherly in tone.
"Neither my good opinion nor my bad opinion is of any consequence to him," Diana thought bitterly. It was late in August when Captain Paget and his protégé came to town. Valentine suggested the wisdom of leaving Diana in her new home uncompromised by any past associations. But this was a suggestion which Horatio Paget could not accept. His brightest successes in the way of scheming had been matured out of chance acquaintanceships with eligible men. A man who could afford such a luxury as a companion for his daughter must needs be eligible, and the Captain was not inclined to sacrifice his acquaintance from any extreme delicacy.
"My daughter seems to have made new friends for herself, and I should like to see what kind of people they are," he said conclusively. "We'll look them up this evening, Val."