"You have been well, my Ladybird, I see—you are blooming as a rose. And where is good Aunt Prue?"
"Oh, nodding in the dining-room, I expect. She always nods after tea, you know. Well, you have been away almost six weeks, you naughty papa."
"You have not missed me, I'm sure, for I find you sitting alone in the parlor, and as fine as a peacock, like a young lady expecting her beau. Were you?"
He pinched the blushing cheek and laughed mischievously as she affirmed:
"No, indeed!"
"Glad to hear it. I don't want any young fellow to carry you off from me for ages yet."
Miss Prudence Primrose entered presently and Bruce Conway rose with unaffected pleasure to greet this distant relative, a kindly old Quakeress that he had induced to come and live with Ladybird after he brought her home from her Virginia boarding-school.
But the old lady did not quite approve of the wildness of the prankish girl, and when she was alone with Bruce that night she said:
"Ladybird is asleep by now, so I must tell thee that thee art spoiling thy daughter, Bruce. She is too pretty and willful for her own good."
Bruce Conway smiled in a graceful, indolent way he had.