Frances did not pay much attention to the discourse about the Savona pots; she went on with her thoughts about the cousins, and when Miss Durant went away, gave herself up entirely to those speculations. What sort of people would they be? Where would they live? And then there recurred to her mind the meeting of the morning, and what the stranger said who knew her father. It was almost the first time she had ever seen him meet any one whom he knew, except the acquaintances of recent times, with whom she had made acquaintance, as he did. But the stranger of the morning evidently knew about him in a period unknown to Frances. She had made a slight and cautious attempt to find out something about him at breakfast, but it had not been successful. She wondered whether she would have courage to ask her father now in so many words who he was and what he meant.
CHAPTER III.
As it turned out, Frances had not the courage. Mr Waring strolled into the loggia shortly after Miss Durant had left her. He smiled when he heard of her visit, and asked what news she had brought. Tasie was the recognised channel for news, and seldom appeared without leaving some little story behind her.
“I don’t think she had any news to-day, except that there had been a great many at the Sunday-school last Sunday. Fancy, papa, twelve children! She is quite excited about it.”
“That is a triumph,” said Mr Waring, with a laugh. He stretched out his long limbs from the low basket-chair in which he had placed himself. He had relaxed a little altogether from the tension of the morning, feeling himself secure and at his ease in his own house, where no one could intrude upon him or call up ghosts of the past. The air was beyond expression sweet and tranquillising, the sun going down in a mist of glory behind the endless peaks and ridges that stretched away towards the west, the sea lapping the shore with a soft cadence that was more imagined than heard on the heights of the Punto, but yet added another harmony to the scene. Near at hand a faint wind rustled the long leaves of the palm-trees, and the pale olive woods lent a softness to the landscape, tempering its radiance. Such a scene fills up the weary mind, and has the blessed quality of arresting thought. It was good for the breathing too—or at least so this invalid thought—and he was more amiable than usual, with no harshness in voice or temper to introduce a discord. “I am glad she was pleased,” he said. “Tasie is a good girl, though not perhaps so much of a girl as she thinks. Why she goes in for a Sunday-school where none is wanted, I can’t tell; but anyhow, I am glad she is pleased. Where did they come from, the twelve children? Poor little beggars, how sick of it they must have been!”
“A number of them belonged to that English family, papa——”
“I suppose they must all belong to English families,” he said, calmly; “the natives are not such fools.”
“But, papa, I mean—the people we met—the people you knew.”
He made no reply for a few minutes, and then he said calmly, “What an ass the man must be, not only to travel with children, but to send them to poor Tasie’s Sunday-school! You must do me the justice, Fan, to acknowledge that I never attempted to treat you in that way.”
“No; but, papa—perhaps the gentleman is a very religious man.”