He stooped, printed a gentle kiss between Miss Pritty’s wondering eyes, and vanished.
“A most remarkable boy,” said the disconcerted lady, resuming her seat at the tea-table—“so impulsive and volatile. But he’s a dear good boy nevertheless—was so kind to his mother while she was alive, and ran away from school when quite young—and no wonder, for it was a dreadful school, where they used to torture the boys,—absolutely tortured them. The head-master and ushers were tried for it afterwards, I’m told. At all events; Eddy ran away from it after pulling the master’s nose and kicking the head usher—so it is said, though I cannot believe it, he is usually so gentle and courteous.—Do have a little more tea. No? A piece of bun? No? Why, you seem quite flushed, my love. Not unwell, I trust? No? Well, then, let us proceed to business.”
Chapter Four.
Divers Matters.
Charles Hazlit, Esquire, was a merchant and a shipowner, a landed proprietor, a manager of banks, a member of numerous boards and committees, a guardian of the poor, a volunteer colonel, and a good-humoured man on the whole, but purse-proud and pompous. He was also the father of Aileen.
Behold him seated in an elegant drawing-room, in a splendid mansion at the “west end” (strange that all aristocratic ends would appear to be west ends!) of the seaport town which owned him. His blooming daughter sat beside him at a table, on which lay a small, peculiar, box. He doated on his daughter, and with good reason. Their attention was so exclusively taken up with the peculiar box that they had failed to observe the entrance, unannounced, of a man of rough exterior, who stood at the door, hat in hand, bowing and coughing attractively, but without success.
“My darling,” said Mr Hazlit, stooping to kiss his child—his only child—who raised her pretty little three-cornered mouth to receive it, “this being your twenty-first birthday, I have at last brought myself to look once again on your sainted mother’s jewel-case, in order that I may present it to you. I have not opened it since the day she died. It is now yours, my child.”
Aileen opened her eyes in mute amazement. It would seem as though there had been some secret sympathy between her and the man at the door, for he did precisely the same thing. He also crushed his hat somewhat convulsively with both hands, but without doing it any damage, as it was a very hard sailor-like hat. He also did something to his lips with his tongue, which looked a little like licking them.