“I want no pictures now,” cried Margaret, weeping. “Oh, are you ill—are you ill, papa?”
“No, I am just as usual. Don’t cry, my little girl. Whisht, now whisht, you must not cry; I did not mean to vex you. But we must not have too much of Rob Glen or Mr. Glen, whichever is his name. It might be bad for him, my darling, as well as for you.”
“I don’t care anything about him or them, or anything,” cried Margaret; “all the pleasure is gone out of it. Will I send for the doctor? will I cry upon Bell? You must be feeling ill, papa.”
“Will you speak decent English?” said her father, with a smile; her anxiety somehow restored himself to himself. “Cry upon Bell! what does that mean, my little Peggy? You are too Fifish; you will not find anything like that in books, not in Shakspeare, or in—”
“It is in the Bible, papa,” said Margaret, roused to a little irritation in the midst of her emotion. “I am quite sure it is in the Bible; and is not that the best rule.”
Sir Ludovic was a little puzzled. “Oh yes, certainly the best rule for everything, my little girl; but the language, the English is perhaps a little old-fashioned, a little out of use, a little—”
“Papa! is it not the Word of God?”
Sir Ludovic laughed in spite of himself.
“It was not first delivered in English, you know. It was not written here; but still there is something to be said for your view. Now, my Peggy, run away.”
But when she left him reluctantly, unwinding her arms from his shoulders slowly, looking at him anxiously, with a new awakening of feeling in her anxiety and terror, Sir Ludovic shook his head, looking after her. He was not capable of crossing his little girl; but he had his doubts that her position was dangerous, though she was far too innocent to know it. Unless what he had said were to disgust her altogether, how could he interfere to prevent the execution of this picture which it would be so pleasant for her to have afterward? “Decidedly,” he said to himself—“decidedly! I must write to Jean and Grace.”