At that moment Dr. Ross entered the room, and at the first sight of his face Audrey sprang up, and he opened his arms to receive her.
'Oh, daddy, is it all right?'
'Well, it is as far right as it can be,' he replied, in rather an inexplicable voice. 'Emmie, my dear, this girl of ours has taken the bit between her teeth. Geraldine never gave us this trouble. She fell in love with the right man at the right time, and everything was arranged properly.'
'And now the right man has fallen in love with me,' whispered Audrey in her father's ear.
'But you have given your consent, John?' returned his wife, in a pleading tone. In spite of her fears about Geraldine, her sympathies were by this time enlisted on the side of the lovers. 'Of course, Mr. Blake is a poor man; but I daresay Dr. Charrington will push him when he knows how things are; and he is so nice and pleasant and clever, and dear Audrey really loves him.'
'Are you sure of that?' trying to catch a glimpse of his daughter's face. 'Girls make mistakes sometimes.' And then, as a faint protest reached him: 'Well, you will find the fellow in my study, if you want to talk to him. Perhaps you had better bring him in to see your mother.'
And Audrey withdrew, blushing like a rose.
'She is very fond of him, John,' observed Mrs. Ross, with a trace of anxiety in her tone, as though her husband's manner did not quite satisfy her. 'She has been talking to me for the last hour. Audrey never cared for anyone before. You remember young Silverdale and Fred Langton—they were both in love with her, and would have spoken if she had given them the chance; but she was as distant as possible.'
'Yes; and Fred Langton has fifteen hundred a year, and his father is a Member of Parliament. He is a nice fellow, too—only a little too stout for so young a man; but he is not the sort Audrey would fancy. Blake is a good fellow, and I liked him from the first,' continued the Doctor, in a musing tone; 'but I never should have picked him out for Audrey.'
'Perhaps you think him too young?' hazarded his wife.