"But I shouldn't have been gallivanting, you dear old Madden," she cried, with a joyous silver laugh, that was like the ripple of a cascade under a sunny sky. "I should only have been sitting quietly in a private box, with my rapid, precious, aggravating, darling old nurse to keep watch and ward over me. Besides, how could papa be angry with me upon the first day of his coming home?"
Mrs. Madden shook her head again even more solemnly than before.
"I don't know about that, Miss Laura. You mustn't expect to find Mr. Dunbar like your gran'pa."
A sudden cloud fell upon the girl's lovely face.
"Why, Elizabeth," she said, "you don't mean that papa will be unkind to me?"
"I don't know your pa, Miss Laura. I never set eyes upon Mr. Dunbar in my life. But the Indian servant that brought you over, when you was but a bit of a baby, said that your pa was proud and passionate; and that even your poor mar, which he loved her better than any livin' creature upon this earth, was almost afraid of him."
The smile had quite vanished from Laura Dunbar's face by this time, and the blue eyes filled suddenly with tears.
"Oh, what shall I do if my father is unkind to me?" she said, piteously. "I have so looked forward to his coming home. I have counted the very days; and if he is unkind to me—if he does not love me——"
She covered her face with her hands, and turned away her head. "Laura," exclaimed Arthur Lovell, addressing her for the first time by her Christian name, "how could any one help loving you? How——"
He stopped, half ashamed of his passionate enthusiasm. In those few words he had revealed the secret of his heart: but Laura Dunbar was too innocent to understand the meaning of those eager words.