“Well, cousin Rose,” said Oliver, “if it be not prying into secrets, I should like to know how long it is since my uncle adopted you.”
“About nineteen years ago,” replied Rose.
“Oh!” said Oliver remonstratively, “before you were born? impossible!”
Rose laughed—a short, clear, little laugh which she nipped in the bud abruptly, and replied—
“Well, it was only a short time after I was born. I was wrecked on this coast”—the expressive face here became very grave—“and all on board our ship perished except myself.”
Oliver saw at once that he had touched on a tender subject, and hastened to change it by asking a number of questions about his uncle, from which he gradually diverged to the recent events in his own history, which he began to relate with much animation. His companion was greatly interested and amused. She laughed often and heartily in a melodious undertone, and Oliver liked her laugh, for it was peculiar, and had the effect of displaying a double row of pretty little teeth, and of almost entirely shutting up her eyes. She seemed to enjoy a laugh so much that he exerted all his powers to tickle her risible faculties, and dwelt long and graphically on his meeting with the irascible old gentleman in the lane. He was still busy with this part of the discourse when a heavy step was heard outside.
“There’s my uncle,” exclaimed Rose, springing up.
A moment after the door opened, and in walked the identical irascible old gentleman himself!
If a petrified impersonation of astonishment had been a possibility, Oliver Trembath would, on that occasion, have presented the phenomenon. He sat, or rather lay, extended for at least half a minute with his eyes wide and his mouth partly open, bereft alike of the powers of speech and motion.
“Heyday, young man!” exclaimed the old gentleman, planting his sturdy frame in the middle of the floor as if he meant then and there to demand and exact an ample apology, or to inflict condign and terrible chastisement, for past misdeeds; “you appear to be making yourself quite at home—eh?”