Mr Kennedy thrust his hands into his pockets, frowned portentously as he looked from the one to the other, and said slowly, “Miss Kennedy, Mr Somerville!” then turning to his son, remarked, “That’s something new, Charley lad; that girl is Miss Kennedy, and that youth there is Mr Somerville!”
Charley laughed loudly at this sally, especially when the old gentleman followed it up with a series of contortions of the left cheek, meant for violent winking.
“Right, father, right; it won’t do here. We don’t know anybody but Kate and Harry in this house.”
Harry laughed in his own genuine style at this.
“Well, Kate be it, with all my heart,” said he; “but, really, at first she seemed so unlike the Kate of former days that I could not bring myself to call her so.”
“Humph!” said Mr Kennedy. “But come, boys, with me to my smoking-room, and let’s have a talk over a pipe, while Kate looks after dinner.” Giving Charley another squeeze of the hand and Harry a pat on the shoulder, the old gentleman put on his cap (with the peak behind), and led the way to his glass divan in the garden.
It is perhaps unnecessary for us to say that Kate Kennedy and Harry Somerville had, within the last hour, fallen deeply, hopelessly, utterly, irrevocably, and totally in love with each other. They did not merely fall up to the ears in love. To say that they fell over head and ears in it would be, comparatively speaking, to say nothing. In fact they did not fall into it at all. They went deliberately backwards, took a long race, sprang high into the air, turned completely round, and went down head first into the flood, descending to a depth utterly beyond the power of any deep-sea lead to fathom, or of any human mind adequately to appreciate. Up to that day Kate had thought of Harry as the hilarious youth who used to take every opportunity he could of escaping from the counting-room and hastening to spend the afternoon in rambling through the woods with her and Charley. But the instant she saw him a man, with a bright, cheerful countenance, on which rough living and exposure to frequent peril had stamped unmistakable lines of energy and decision, and to which recent illness had imparted a captivating touch of sadness—the moment she beheld this, and the undeniable scrap of whisker that graced his cheeks, and the slight shade that rested on his upper lip, her heart leaped violently into her throat, where it stuck hard and fast, like a stranded ship on a lee-shore.
In like manner, when Harry beheld his former friend a woman, with beaming eyes and clustering ringlets, and—(there, we won’t attempt it!)—in fact, surrounded by every nameless and nameable grace that makes woman exasperatingly delightful, his heart performed the same eccentric movement, and he felt that his fate was sealed; that he had been sucked into a rapid which was too strong even for his expert and powerful arm to contend against, and that he must drift with the current now, nolens volens, and run it as he best could.
When Kate retired to her sleeping-apartment that night, she endeavoured to comport herself in her usual manner; but all her efforts failed. She sat down on her bed, and remained motionless for half an hour; then she started and sighed deeply; then she smiled and opened her Bible, but forgot to read it; then she rose hastily, sighed again, took off her gown, hang it up on a peg, and, returning to the dressing-table, sat down on her best bonnet; then she cried a little, at which point the candle suddenly went out; so she gave a slight scream, and at last went to bed in the dark.
Three hours afterwards, Harry Somerville, who had been enjoying a cigar and a chat with Charley and his father, rose, and bidding his friends good-night, retired to his chamber, where he flung himself down on a chair, thrust his hands into his pockets, stretched out his legs, gazed abstractedly before him, and exclaimed—“O Kate, my exquisite girl, you’ve floored me quite flat!”