Nay! Sweet seventeen would not say so unbidden, yet still—perhaps—if she dreamt that night, grey eyes would be there with the sunshine and the primroses.
Mistress Gabrielle was smiling as she stood for a moment at the window, her dark curls falling over her white night-rail, before she turned with a blush and sigh, which latter was half laugh of soft content, to climb into the big four-poster bed with its quaint carvings of griffin and goblin, which might have scared the fancy of a maid less healthy and pure-hearted.
As for Michael Berrington, he was finding that the honour of the highest names in the land was like as not to find a common resting-place at the bottom of a punch-bowl; and, try as he might, he was little likely to do good by fishing therein.
The punch of his father's brewing and the port of bygone generations of Conyers were playing havoc with tongues and limbs of the younger beaux of that merry company.
Disgusted with drunken jests, which suited ill with his present mood, the young man took the first opportunity to slip away unseen.
He was hoping to find some one awaiting him in the saloon.
But, as I have said, the little lady he wanted had already retired, less from desire than modesty, and he was left to wander alone the length of the great room pondering philosophically on the strange trick of fate that brought him here. Surely the ghost of Ralph Conyers, bent, twisted Ralph, who had carried a life-grudge to the grave, would be peeping at him from the shadows, shaking a crippled fist at the son of the man who first betrayed and then outraged his memory?
His father the friend of Morice Conyers! His father the traitor who had sent Ralph Conyers to his grave!
Lord! what a world!
And a third note,—be it added beneath his breath,—he himself the man who would woo Ralph Conyers's pretty daughter and win her—if the world could hold so much happiness for a sinner—as his wife.