“At present he likes to hug you and see ‘pick-shures’ of heavenly places,” said the Major. “That’s a bad sign, Letty! Woman and Art spells ruin like theatrical speculation! Well! Come and have a game of chess with me before I go home to my lonely bachelor rooms;—it is really too bad of you to make a sour old man of me in this way!”
Miss Leslie laughed heartily.
“No one will ever call you a sour old man, Dick,” she said as she rose from the table. “You are the most genial and generous-hearted fellow I know.”
“Then why won’t you have me?” pleaded Desmond.
“Oh, you know why,” said Letty. “What is the use of going over it all again?”
“Going over it all—yes—I know!” said the Major dismally. “You have got it into your head that if you were to marry me, and that then afterwards we died—as we shall do—and went to Heaven—which is a question—you would find your Harry up there in the shape of a stern reproving angel, ready to scold you for having a little happiness and sympathy on earth when he was not there. Now, if things are to be arranged in that way, some folks will be in awful trouble. The ladies who have had several husbands,—the husbands who have had several wives,—stern reproving angels all round,—good gracious! What a row there will be! Fact is fact, Letty,—there cannot possibly be peace in Heaven under such circumstances!”
“Do stop talking such nonsense,” said Miss Leslie, still laughing. “Really I begin to wish you had gone abroad after all!”
“No, you don’t,” said Dick confidently, as he followed her into the drawing-room. “You are pleased to see me, you know you are! Hullo! Here’s Margaret. What’s up? Something wrong with Boy?”
“Oh no, sir,” said Margaret, who had just entered the room; “but I thought perhaps Miss Leslie would like to see him asleep. He is just the bonniest wee bairnie!”
“Oh, I must go and look at him!” said Miss Letty eagerly. “Will you come too, Dick?”