"Those days ended when Robert married," Sir Peter continued. "I quarreled with him and we parted. I never saw him again. And for ten years my house was a mausoleum, haunted by memories; a torture-house of vain regrets and useless longings."
His voice broke; he rose suddenly and walked to the window again. They were silent until he returned to his chair. Phyllis seated herself on the broad arm of it, and laid a caressing hand on his shoulder. He took the hand and held it.
"Then came the news from the North—that my little girl was motherless—and fatherless; and then came my little girl herself. She was a very little girl then; a sad and lonely little girl; but"—Sir Peter cleared his throat, and spoke huskily and slowly—"but she brought comfort to me. There was something in life for me again—besides my work. My work I always had. I thanked God for that. I need not tell you, John, how this little girl crept into my heart, nor how her small fingers smoothed away the wrinkles from my gloomy old face." Sir Peter looked up at her and pressed the hand he held. "And so the years rolled on—and she grew, and grew, and grew, until she became a young woman. A—a passably good-looking young woman—eh, John? Wouldn't you say so—passably good-looking?"
John smiled.
"I might say so to you, sir—privately," he admitted.
"And when she was certain of her conquest of me," continued Sir Peter, "she looked about, as it were, for other worlds to conquer. And along came a—er—h'm—along came a young prince. Precisely so—along came a young prince upon whom the fairies had bestowed marvelous gifts." Sir Peter fairly chuckled as he completed this unusual imaginative flight. "Marvelous gifts," he repeated. "Eh, Phyllis? Would you say he had marvelous gifts?"
"If we were quite alone, Uncle Peter, I might say so," confessed Phyllis.
"And this passably good-looking young woman and this prince of the marvelous gifts proceeded to fall in love with each other in the most natural way in the world," Sir Peter went on. "Precisely so. In the most natural way in the world; as any one but a grumpy old fellow would have foreseen they would. And having fallen in love with each other, what in the world was there for them to do but to be married at once—eh? And yet, will you believe it?—there was a grumpy old fellow who wished to prevent it. Now, what could you say to an old fellow as grumpy as that?" Sir Peter adjusted his eyeglass and looked first at John, and then at Phyllis, quizzically.
"I should say no one could blame him," said John promptly.
"I shouldn't say anything. I should just hug him," said Phyllis, and carried out the threat with spirit.