“Guess she is—both of ’em!” replied the girl.
“Tell both of ’em I’m here, then,” said the captain, stepping into the little parlour without further ceremony; “and is my little girl in?”
“Yes, she’s in.”
“Then send her here too, an’ look alive, lass.” So saying, Captain Dunning sat down on the sofa, and began to beat the floor with his right foot somewhat impatiently.
In another second a merry little voice was heard in the passage, the door burst open, a fair-haired girl of about ten years of age sprang into the room, and immediately commenced to strangle her father in a series of violent embraces.
“Why, Ailie, my darling, one would think you had not seen me for fifty years at least,” said the captain, holding his daughter at arm’s-length, in order the more satisfactorily to see her.
“It’s a whole week, papa, since you last came to see me,” replied the little one, striving to get at her father’s neck again, “and I’m sure it seems to me like a hundred years at least.”
As the child said this she threw her little arms round her father, and kissed his large, weather-beaten visage all over—eyes, mouth, nose, chin, whiskers, and, in fact, every attainable spot. She did it so vigorously, too, that an observer would have been justified in expecting that her soft, delicate cheeks would be lacerated by the rough contact; but they were not. The result was a heightening of the colour, nothing more. Having concluded this operation, she laid her cheek on the captain’s and endeavoured to clasp her hands at the back of his neck, but this was no easy matter. The captain’s neck was a remarkably thick one, and the garments about that region were voluminous; however, by dint of determination, she got the small fingers intertwined, and then gave him a squeeze that ought to have choked him, but it didn’t: many a strong man had tried that in his day, and had failed signally.
“You’ll stay a long time with me before you go away to sea again, won’t you, dear papa?” asked the child earnestly, after she had given up the futile effort to strangle him.
“How like!” murmured the captain, as if to himself, and totally unmindful of the question, while he parted the fair curls and kissed Ailie’s forehead.