“Who’s that you’re speaking of?” asked Mr. Kingsford, looking up from his Transcript. “That young Ryerson?”
“Yes, sir,” Everett replied.
“Well, if his people have lost their money I guess he thinks society is too expensive for him. I’m glad he’s got so much sense. I always thought he seemed level-headed. I wish you were as much so, sir.” Everett grinned.
“But,” continued Mr. Kingsford, glancing up and down the market columns, “it won’t do for him to think we are snobbish. And besides, I won’t have him breaking Betty’s heart. You tell him from me that I want him to come in to dinner next week.”
“You’re very nice, papa,” said Betty sweetly, “but my heart’s not nearly so fragile as you seem to think.”
“Glad to hear it; must be like your mother’s. She broke mine fifty times before she finally consented to marry me, and I don’t believe she ever sustained a fracture herself.”
“Poor old dad,” murmured Betty.
“Betty, you’re getting into a most annoying habit of referring to me as aged,” said Mr. Kingsford, scowling blackly. “I want you to understand, miss, that I am only six years older than your mother and she’s the youngest woman in Boston.”
Mrs. Kingsford smiled and blushed, as she always did at her husband’s compliments, and arose in response to the appearance at the library door of the maid with wraps.
“Come, Betty, the carriage is here,” she said. Everett accompanied them downstairs and saw them into the brougham. When he returned to the library he found his father had thrown aside the paper and was thoughtfully watching the smoke curl up from the tip of his cigar.