"Thank you. Is that rich old curmudgeon, your uncle, alive yet?"
"Yes, sir."
"And your brother? In Germany still, I suppose."
"No, sir; my brother is in Canada—in St. Croix. He was here this evening."
"Indeed! Where is he stopping? We must get him to come here."
"He is on a visit to M. le Curé, and I do not think means to stay long."
The door opened as she said it, and Kate and Eeny came in. The sisters had their arms around each other's waist, and Eeny seemed entranced. Kate went over and stood beside her father, looking up fondly in his face.
"How pretty the rooms are, papa! My boudoir and bedroom are charming. Eeny is going to chaperone me all over to-morrow—such a dear, romantic old house."
Grace sat and looked at her. How beautiful she was! She still wore slight mourning, and her dress was black silk, that fell in full rich folds behind her, high to the round white throat, where it was clasped with a flashing diamond. A solitaire diamond blazed on her left hand—those slender, delicate little hands—her engagement ring, no doubt. They were all the jewels she wore. The trimming of her dress was of filmy black lace, and all her masses of bright golden hair were twisted coronet-wise round her noble and lovely head. She was very tall, very slender; and the exquisite face just tinted with only the faintest shadow of rose. "Beautiful, and stately, and proud as a queen!" Yes, she looked all that, and Grace wondered what manner of man had won that high-beating heart. There was a witchery in her glance, in her radiant smile, in every graceful movement, that fascinated even her father's sedate housekeeper, and that seemed to have completely captivated little Eeny. In her beauty and her pride, as she stood there so graceful and elegant, Grace thought her father was right when he said a prince was not too good for his peerless daughter.
He smiled down on her now as men do smile down on what is the apple of their eye and the pride of their heart, and then turned to Eeny, clinging to her stately sister.