Mr. Mercier turned to the Colonel.
“For these children did you ask me to waste my time?” and putting his head out of the carriage, he simply roared:
“Rue Saint Denis! Sacré!”
They set us down at the corner of our street. When we got in a friend of papa’s was singing to mama and Ada in the parlor:
“In the gloaming, oh, my darling,
When the lights are dim and low.”
He was one of many Englishmen, younger sons of aristocrats, who, not much good in England, were often sent to Canada. They liked to hang around papa, whose family most of them knew. This young man was a thin, harmless sort of fellow, soft-spoken and rather silly, Ellen and I thought; but he could play and sing in a pretty, sentimental way and mama and Ada would listen by the hour to him. He liked Ada, but Ada pretended she had only an indifferent interest in him. His father was the Earl of Albemarle, and Ellen and I used to make Ada furious by calling her “Countess,” and bowing mockingly before her.
Walking on tiptoe, Ellen and I slipped by the parlor door, and up to our own room. That night, after we were in bed, I said to Ellen:
“You know, I think Colonel Stevens is in love with me. Maybe he will want me to elope with him. Would you if you were me?”
“Don’t be silly. Go to sleep,” was Ellen’s cross response. She regretted very much taking that ride, and she said she only did it because she got so tired at the office all day, and thought a little ride would be nice. She had no idea, she said, that those “two old fools” would act like that.
I was not going to let Ellen go to sleep so easily, however.