"How is she now?" he asked his young sister Rose, when he came down at last, discontented with himself, though appearing unusually smart to her.
"Well, thank you, Frank, mother is not quite the thing to-night. She did not get quite her proper rest, you know, on account of the strange young lady. And she never took her hore-hound lozenges. She thinks too much of others, and too little of herself——"
"As if I did not know all that! Will you never tell me anything I want to know? But I suppose the young lady won't keep her up to-night?"
"She? Oh she is all right enough. You should just see her eat. My goodness! Talk of farmhouse appetites!"
"Rose, who are you to understand such things? You have seen so very little of the world; and you judge it entirely by yourself. I suppose the door is not open?"
"Oh yes. Anybody can look in, if that's what you want to do. She has been sitting up ever so long, with mother's dressing-gown and Sunday shawl on. Such a guy you never see in all your life!"
"A pity you can't be a guy then. Why Rose, if you only had a hundredth part——"
"Yes, I dare say. But I don't want, don't you see? I am quite contented as I am; and better judges than you will ever be—why that coloured hair is quite out of fashion now. Everybody goes in for this sort of tint, and a leaden comb to make it darker. Corkscrews are all the rage, and they can't be too black. Why Minnie Farrant told me, last Sunday, that she read on the best authority——"
"Her Bible, or her Prayer-book?"
"Don't be so absurd. The very best authority, that Queen Adelaide herself told His Majesty as much, and he said he was a Tar, and the best pitch wasn't black. That was to please her, you know. Wasn't it clever of him? Oh Frank, why don't you fall in love with Minnie Farrant—your own Godfather's favourite child, and they say she'll have four thousand pounds?"