“You cannot understand me, madam. And I will not pretend to argue with you.”
“I should hope not indeed. If we spread this story at the beginning of the season, and have you presented while it is fresh, we may save you, even yet, from your monster, perhaps. There will be such eagerness to behold you, simply because you must not be looked at, that everybody will be at your feet, all closing their eyes for your sake, I should hope.”
Alice was a very sweet-tempered girl; but all the contempt with which in her heart she unconsciously regarded her grandmother was scarcely enough to keep her from flashing forth at this common raillery. Large tears of pride and injured delicacy formed in her eyes, but she held them in; only asking with a curtsy, “May I go now, if you please?”
“To be sure, you may go. You have done quite enough. You have made me laugh so that I want my tea. Only remember one serious thing—the interest of the family requires that you should soon learn to be looked at. You must begin to take lessons at once. Within six months you must be engaged, and within twelve months you must be married to Captain Stephen Chapman.”
“I trow not,” said Alice to herself, as with another curtsy, and a shudder, she retreated.
But she had not long been sitting by herself, and feeling the bitterness of defeat, before she determined, with womanly wit, to have a triumph somewhere; so she ran at once to her father’s room, and he of course was at home to her. “If you please, dear papa, you must shut your books, and you must come into this great chair, and you must not shut even one of your eyes, but listen in the most respectful manner to all I have to say to you.”
“Well, my dear,” Sir Roland answered; “what must be must. You are a thorough tyrant. The days are certainly getting longer; but they scarcely seem to be long enough for you to torment your father.”
“No candles, papa, if you please, as yet. What I have to say can be said in the dark, and that will enable you to look at me, papa, which otherwise you could scarcely do. Is it true that you are plotting to marry me to that odious Captain Chapman?”
Sir Roland began to think what to say; for his better nature often told him to wash his hands of this loathsome scheme.
“Are you so tired of me already,” said the quick girl, with sound of tears in her voice; “have I behaved so very badly, and shown so little love for you, that you want to kill me so very soon, father?”