“Yes, I think I shall mind it very much,” Virgie retorted; “so much that I should be unhappy to be anything else. Besides,” she added, more gravely, “my father was an Englishman.”
“Is it possible? But I do not think that Alexander is an English name,” Rupert returned. “Of what portion of England was he a native?”
“I do not know, Rupert,” Virgie said, looking troubled. “I imagine there is something about my father that mamma has never been willing to tell me. She always grows so sad and pale whenever I speak of him that I have not the heart to question her, although, as I have grown older, I have been very desirous of knowing more concerning him.”
“Do you remember him?”
“Oh, no; I never saw him. He was called home to England a few weeks before my birth, and was lost.”
“Lost at sea! How sad! Mrs. Alexander must have been very young.”
“Yes, she was only a little over twenty.”
“You will probably visit your father’s home now that you are here,” Rupert remarked.
“I asked mamma that one day, and she grew so white that I was frightened. She remarked that that was one object she had in coming abroad, but it was chiefly for my sake; and then she shivered as if there was something about it that she regarded with great dread. But hush! she is coming back to us.”
Mrs. Alexander entered at that moment, and smiled as she saw the happy faces of the two young lovers, although Virgie was sure that there was a suspicious redness about her eyes, as if she had been weeping.