“No; I am not disappointed,” Lady Markham was saying down-stairs. She was standing before the genial blaze of the fire, looking into it with her head bent and a serious expression on her face. “Perhaps I was too much delighted for a moment; but she, poor child, now that she has looked at me a second time, she is a little, just a little disappointed in me. That’s rather hard for a mother, you know; or I suppose you don’t know.”
“I never was a mother,” said Markham. “I should think it’s very natural. The little thing has been forming the most romantic ideas. If you had been an angel from heaven——”
“Which I am not,” she said with a smile, still looking into the fire.
“Heaven be praised,” said Markham. “In that case, you would not have suited me—which you do, mammy, you know, down to the ground.”
She gave a half glance at him, a half smile, but did not disturb the chain of her reflections. “That’s something, Markham,” she said.
“Yes; it’s something. On my side, it is a great deal. Don’t go too fast with little Fan. She has a deal in her. Have a little patience, and let her settle down her own way.”
“I don’t feel sure that she has not got her father’s temper; I saw something like it in her eyes.”
“That is nonsense, begging your pardon. She has got nothing of her father in her eyes. Her eyes are like yours, and so is everything about her. My dear mother, Con’s like Waring, if you like. This one is of our side of the house.”
“Do you really think so?” Lady Markham looked up now and laid her hand affectionately upon his shoulder, and laughed. “But, my dear boy, you are as like the Markhams as you can look. On my side of the house, there is nobody at all, unless, as you say——”