"Oh no, thank you, papa," she said, cheerfully, "let them all come; it does me good to have people coming in and out; it amuses me; they are so funny, some of them, aren't they, papa? Don't they make you laugh sometimes?"
Sir William made some evasive answer, and glanced towards the end of the room, where I was sitting at work.
"Oh, you need not mind her, papa," said Evelyn aloud, "she is not the brown alpaca. I mean to tell her everything, and to talk just the same when she is in the room as when she is out of it."
Sir William seemed rather amused at the rapid friendship that had sprung up between us, but it did not appear to displease him, for he smiled kindly at me, and gave me a few more words of welcome as he rose to leave the room. But when he got to the door he said gravely:
"Lord Moreton is very anxious to see you this morning, Evelyn; shall I let him come when you got into the other room?"
Evelyn laughed heartily.
"Yes, if it is any amusement to him, papa," she said; "I am sure he amuses me. Oh! If you had only seen him the other day; he came up when Alicia Hay was sitting beside me, and neither of them spoke a word. He sat looking at me, and she sat looking at him; and they were both perfectly stupid."
"Lord Moreton is a very worthy young man, Evelyn," said her father, gravely.
"Oh, a very worthy young man," she repeated, in exactly the same tone, so exactly that I could scarcely keep from smiling; "but the worst is, papa, that I don't like very worthy young men; they are so dreadfully uninteresting—at least, if Lord Moreton is a specimen—they sit and look at you, and then clear their throats, and try to make some feeble remark, and break down in the middle. Oh dear! It is so amusing. Now Cousin Donald never does that; he can make himself very agreeable; I wish he would come to see me."
"Donald has other business to attend to," said her father, rather sharply; "he has no time to lose now. Donald must make his way in the world."