The young lady obeyed in silence, and not without a little of that reluctant gaucherie which patients display when seating themselves in front of a physician, or a naughty child composing itself to listen to the parental lecture.
The natural gaiety of “Lilly Quasheba” was not easily restrained; and though the unusual gravity depicted in her father’s face might have checked it, the formality with which he was initiating the interview had an opposite effect. At the corners of her pretty little mouth might have been observed something that resembled a smile.
Her father did observe something that resembled it.
“Come, Catherine!” said he, reprovingly, “I have called you out to talk over a serious matter. I expect you to listen seriously, as becomes the subject.”
“Oh! papa, how can I be serious, till I know the subject? You are not ill, I hope?”
“Tut, no—no. It has nothing to do with my health—which, thank Providence, is good enough—nor yours neither. It is our wealth, not our health, that is concerned—our wealth, Catherine!”
The last phrase was uttered with emphasis, and in a confidential way, as if to enlist his daughter’s sympathies upon the subject.
“Our wealth, papa? I hope nothing has happened? You have had no losses?”
“No, child,” replied Mr Vaughan, now speaking in a fond, parental tone; “nothing of the sort, thanks to fortune, and perhaps a little to my own prudence. It is not losses I am thinking about, but gains.”
“Gains!”