Sir Cradock Nowell marched away, thinking what a blessing it was that he had not had much to do with women. Then he reproached himself for the thought, as he remembered his darling Violet, the mother of his children. But, before he had brooded very long in the only room he liked to use now, his study just off from the library, a gentle knock came to the door—as Biddy always expressed it—and Eoa, dressed in deepest mourning (made at Lymington, from her own frock, while she lay ill at the Crown), came up to him steadily, and kissed him, and sat on a stool at his feet.
“Oh, uncle, I am so sorry,” she said, with her glorious hair falling over his knees, and her deep eyes looking up at him, “I am so sorry, Uncle Cradock, that I vexed you so, just now.”
“You did not vex me, my pretty. I was only vexed for you. Now, remember one thing, my darling—for I shall love you as my own daughter—I have been very harsh and stern where, perhaps, I had no right to be so: if I am ever unkind to you, my dear, if I ever say anything hard, only say ‘Clayton Nowell’ to me, and I will forgive you directly.”
“You mean I must forgive you, uncle. I suppose thatʼs what you mean. If you are unkind to me, what will you want to forgive me for? But I couldnʼt do it. I couldnʼt say it, even if I had done any harm. Please to remember that I either love or I hate people. I know that I shall love you. But you must not contradict me. I never could endure it, and I never will.”
“Well,” said Sir Cradock, laughing; “I will try to remember that, my dear. Though, in that respect, you differ but little from our English young ladies.”
“If you please, Uncle Cradock, I must go to–night to see where you have put my father. There, I wonʼt cry any more, because he told me never to vex you, and I see that my crying vexes you. Did you cry, yourself, Uncle Cradock, when you heard of it first?”
She looked at him, as she asked this question, with such wild intensity, as if her entire opinion of him would hang upon his reply, that the old man felt himself almost compelled to tell “a corker.”
“Well, my dear, I am not ashamed to confess——”
“Ashamed to confess, indeed! I should rather hope not. But you ought to be ashamed, I know, if you hadnʼt cried, Uncle Crad. But now I shall love you very much, now I know you did cry. And how much have you got a year, Uncle Crad?”
“How much what, my dear? What beautiful eyes you have, Eoa; finer than any of the Nowells!”