No one would desire to “break a butterfly on a wheel;” and by this event Hugh Riversdale considered his wife, Helen, avenged.
Mark introduced Nathan Gomer to Hugh, and they together left Wilton’s house for the residence of the deceased Grahame.
Wilton listened to the account of Lester Vane’s iniquity, and to his terrible accident, with a chastened spirit-He called Flora to him, and pressed her to his heart. “I have wronged you, Flo’, my darling,” he said with emotion. “I have been bitterly punished. Well, well; we will see if we cannot reward you with a young handsome fellow you would like better; well, well, we shall see how he behaves himself.”
“Dear, dear father,” murmured Flora, her eyes glistening with happiness at his words.
Old Wilton gazed fondly on her face, upturned to his; a gleam of pride shot forth from his eyes as he perused her exquisite features.
“Upon my word,” he said, with a chuckle, “that young fellow, Vivian, is a cunning dog, with excellent taste. He might journey many a weary mile ere he found a prettier face than yours, Flo’. Except,” he added, reflectively, “that he were to encounter my little pet nurse on his way. Hem! she had a pretty face that kind young friend of yours, eh, Flo’?”
“A dear, dear face!” responded Flora, warmly. She turned to Mark with an expressive twinkle in her eyes, and said, “you think so too, don’t you, Mark?”
“He!” ejaculated his father, with a kind of depreciatory grunt—“he’s but a poor judge.”
“Judge enough, at least,” cried Mark, rather hotly, “to think the face of your little pet nurse, as you call her, the brightest, sweetest, pleasantest, the most loveable under heaven.”
He looked fiercely and defiantly both at his sister and father, as though to challenge them to disprove him if they could. Flora smiled roguishly at him; and Wilton with evident satisfaction, for he little dreamed that the subject of his son’s encomium was that very “low-born beggar” he had so sternly objected to receive into his family.