‘I think perhaps,’ he said, ‘we had better all be thinking of going to bed.’ And he smiled with a feeble and deprecatory smile.
‘Not at all,’ cried the Admiral, ‘I know a trick worth two of that. Puss here,’ indicating his daughter, ‘shall go to bed; and you and I will keep it up till all’s blue.’
Thereupon Esther arose in sullen glory. She had sat and listened for two mortal hours while her idol defiled himself and sneered away his godhead. One by one, her illusions had departed. And now he wished to order her to bed in her own house! now he called her Puss! now, even as he uttered the words, toppling on his chair, he broke the stem of his tobacco-pipe in three! Never did the sheep turn upon her shearer with a more commanding front. Her voice was calm, her enunciation a little slow, but perfectly distinct, and she stood before him as she spoke, in the simplest and most maidenly attitude.
‘No,’ she said, ‘Mr. Naseby will have the goodness to go home at once, and you will go to bed.’
The broken fragments of pipe fell from the Admiral’s fingers; he seemed by his countenance to have lived too long in a world unworthy of him; but it is an odd circumstance, he attempted no reply, and sat thunderstruck, with open mouth.
Dick she motioned sharply towards the door, and he could only obey her. In the porch, finding she was close behind him, he ventured to pause and whisper, ‘You have done right.’
‘I have done as I pleased,’ she said. ‘Can he paint?’
‘Many people like his paintings,’ returned Dick, in stifled tones; ‘I never did; I never said I did,’ he added, fiercely defending himself before he was attacked.
‘I ask you if he can paint. I will not be put off. Can he paint?’ she repeated.
‘No,’ said Dick.