"Could I, father—could I?" she asked, eagerly.
Mr. Vincent looked from one to the other. They were boy and girl, he thought—Tom was twenty-two and Margaret eighteen, a couple of wild children, and before either of them was born their fathers had been old friends. Why shouldn't they go out together?
"It's very kind of you," he said, "and it would prevent her from spending a dull morning."
"It sha'n't be dull if I can help it," Tom answered, triumphantly.
"I may really go?" Margaret cried and kissed her father. "Oh, father, you are a dear."
She was a dear, too, Tom thought, and so was the old man, as he described Mr. Vincent in his thoughts.
The "old man" had an idea of his own. "Bring Margaret back here and lunch with us," he said; "there might be just time enough for that, and we will go and see you on another occasion."
"Good—good!" And Margaret presently found out that this was his favorite expression. "It shall be as you say. Now, Miss Vincent, there's hard work before us." Five minutes later Mr. Vincent watched them start. They waved their hands to him from the hansom, and he turned away with a smile.
"The real thing to do," Tom told Margaret, was to see the great green spaces in the midst of a wonderful city, and the chestnuts which in another month would be in bloom in Hyde Park, and the Round Pond and the Serpentine. "But as, after all," he went on, "you probably have trees and ponds at Chidhurst, we'll begin by going to St. Paul's. I'm afraid, seeing the limited time at our disposal, that the Tower and the Monument must be left alone." A brilliant thought struck him as they were driving back down the Strand to the Houses of Parliament. "We'll take Miss Hunstan a stack of flowers from Covent Garden—you must see Covent Garden, you know. Hi! cabby, turn up here—Covent Garden; we want to get some flowers."
"Oh, but I've brought no money with me."