"I reckon you know best, daughter," he said, clearing his throat in some embarrassment. "But this much I'm as sure of as that the sun is in the sky. You've done a wise thing, and a good thing, in engaging yourself to John. Be true to him and to yourself, and the rest'll all come right. Only, it's fair to tell you that you and John aren't a-going to begin as poor as poverty's back door, the way we did. I've had a little streak o' luck lately, and there's cash enough to give you your fling in Europe, and start you and John to housekeeping in New York in pretty decent style. He's a luckier fellow than he knows, is John, only I don't mean to tell him so yet a while, or anybody else, and neither must you, my girl."
"Could I have a cabin de luxe, and a French maid and a chaperon to travel with, daddy," she asked with a glowing countenance, "instead of half a stateroom with a horrid woman who drenches herself with scents, and lectures me about keeping the light turned on while I do my hair? Could I have a little string of real pearls, and one lovely pearl ring, and a rug for my steamer-chair lined with otter, and tailor-made suits that fit adorably—like Miss Carstairs, who's just my ideal, though she'll hardly look at me?"
"We'll see, we'll see," mumbled Mr. Winstanley, looking as much alarmed as did the fisherman in the "Arabian Nights," when he had let the Genie escape and soar from the Magic Bottle. "Seems to me you spent a good lot shopping in New York the week we were there."
"I wish I could throw all that trash I bought overboard," said the girl, gritting her teeth in vexation. "Nobody but an idiot from Alison's Cross Roads would have chosen such things and thought them stylish."
"It may be so," said her father, resignedly, "but putting one fact alongside another, it looks as if you'd had as good a show as any young lady on board, daughter."
"Daddy, you are the dearest old bat!" cried she, revealing to his astonished gaze her eyes full of big, bright, childish tears. "How can't you see that I'm only a peep-show, an amusement for all these people, and that most of the women on board hardly speak to me? I don't care a bit about that horrid old war-horse of the Scripture that snorts and champs—Miss Bleecker! I consider her beneath my notice, and she may insult me all she pleases. And Mrs. Vereker is another, and all their set—dull, stiff women, with nothing but their wealth to recommend them."
"Well, if it comes to that," murmured Mr. Winstanley, involuntarily clinking the sovereigns he carried in a buckskin pouch in his breeches pocket, then checking himself and saying no more.
"They may say I'm a chorus girl all they're a mind to. I know I'm not, and that you are one of the most honored citizens of our town, and we came of good old stock. I don't deny I've wanted to go on the stage. Till lately, I've simply yearned for it. But that, and all sorts of notions I had seem to have vanished away since I came aboard—since I've known Miss Carstairs."
"That's the young woman sits at our table? Can't say I blame you, Posey, I kinder took a shine to her, myself, the first evening out; but she chilled on me afterward, and I'm never for troubling folks with my attentions."
"She chilled on you because of me, poor dear; for any nice girl in her senses must see you're a heavenly angel, if you do wear rusty tweeds. She thought I was crude and aggressive and cheap, and so I am, maybe, but I don't mean to stay so; and if ever I get to be anything better, it'll be Helen Carstairs that's started me. But she won't know it, and won't know me, and that's really what's bothering me so dreadfully, daddy."