“Cannot I prevail upon you, Miss Evans, to make my little daughter and the rest of us happy, by joining us?” said Mrs. Rowe cordially. “We have a vacant seat to offer you.”
There was no resisting the rare charm of the lady’s manner, and the desolate stranger gladly accepted the invitation, though on being presented to the other members of the party she betrayed great shyness.
“Evidently unaccustomed to society,” thought Mrs. Rowe; “yet so cultivated and refined! I can’t quite understand it.”
After they had become better acquainted, Miss Evans told her that her father and herself had always lived together a retired life, seeing more of books than of people. He was a scientist, and had devoted many years to preparing a learned work on biology.
“As soon as his book was finished, papa meant to take a vacation with me, Mrs. Rowe,” she said tremulously. “We were to visit my uncle in Paris. But the very day after our passage on the steamer had been engaged, papa had a fatal stroke of paralysis. And so,” added Miss Evans, with touching pathos, “and so I came alone.”
“Alone in one sense, my dear Miss Evans; yes, sadly alone,” replied Mrs. Rowe with feeling. “But please consider yourself one of our large party. Please look upon us all as your friends.”
She pressed the young mourner’s hand warmly as she spoke, and resolved to do all in her power to enliven her voyage.
Molly and Pauline bestowed stealthy glances upon the diffident newcomer shrouded in black in Donald’s chair. In the splendor of the moonlight her pale face assumed an unearthly radiance, and Kirke remarked confidentially to Paul that she was “a regular stunner.”
“Solemn as a tombstone, though,” responded Paul. “And see her hang on to that bag at her belt! Anybody’d think it was a life-preserver.”
“I suppose it was once, when the skin was on the alligator’s back,” laughed Kirke. “Hark, Paul, your father is beginning a story!”