"Oh, certainly," said the captain, turning carelessly away; "only Miss Henderson might consider it rather impertinent if she knew her window was watched, and there is a policeman coming this way who may possibly take you up on suspicion of burglary."
It is not improbable, if Captain Cavendish had not already been some paces off, Tom's fist would have been in his face, and his manly length measured on the pavement. Tom never knew afterward what it was kept him from knocking the Englishman down, whom he already hated with the cordial and savage hatred of a true lover. But the captain was not knocked down, and walked home to his elegant rooms, a contemptuous smile on his lips, but an annoyed feeling within. He was so confoundedly good-looking, he thought, this big, blustering, noisy Tom Oaks, and so immensely rich, and women had such remarkably bad taste sometimes that—
"Oh, pshaw!" he impatiently cried to himself, "what am I thinking of to fear a rival in Tom Oaks—that overgrown, blundering idiot. What a glorious creature she is! By Jove! If she were a beggar, those eyes of hers might make her fortune!"
Early in the afternoon of the next day, the plain dark carryall of the lawyer, containing himself and Miss Henderson, drove up to Mr. Blair's for Laura.
Laura did not keep them long waiting; she ran down the steps, her pretty face all smiles, and was helped in and driven off. Miss Henderson lay back like a princess among the cushions, a black velvet mantle folded around her, and looked languidly at the beauties of Speckport as Laura pointed them out. Queen Street stared with all its eyes after the heiress, and the young ladies envied Miss Blair her position, the cynosure of all. The windows of Golden Row were luminous with eyes. If the heiress of Redmon had been the pig-faced lady, she could hardly have attracted more attention. But she might have been a duchess, instead of an ex-seamstress, she was so unaffectedly and radically indifferent; she looked at banks, and custom-houses, and churches, and squares, and men, and women, with listless eyes, but never once kindled into interest. Yes, once they did. It was when they reached the lower part of the town, Cottage Street, in fact, and the bay, all alive with boats, and schooners, and steamers, and ships, came in sight, its saline breath sweeping up in their faces, and its deep, solemn, ceaseless roar sounding in their ears. The heiress sat erect, and a vivid light kindled in her wonderful eyes.
"Oh, the sea!" she cried; "the great, grand, beautiful sea! Oh, Laura! I should like to live where its voice would sound always, night and day, in my ears!"
She had grown so accustomed to hear every one the night before call Miss Blair Laura, that the name came involuntarily, and Laura liked it best.
"It is down here Nathalie Marsh used to live," Laura said; "there is the house. Poor Nathalie!"
"Mrs. Darcy was telling me of her. She was very pretty, was she not?"
"She was beautiful! Not like you," said Laura, paying a compliment with the utmost simplicity; "but fair, with dark blue eyes, and long golden curls, and the loveliest singer you ever heard. Every one loved her. Poor Natty!"