'I don't want to hear it. I don't care a bit about it. Be jolly and gather the rosebuds while you may. She ain't out for long, and we must be joyful at such opportunities as are afforded us. I know as well as you do why you have come. You have come in the goodness of your female heart to cheer a poor crippled wretch like me.'
'I did not know you were a cripple, sir!'
'You didn't. Give me my crutches. Look at this.' He placed his crutches under his arms, swung himself dexterously off his chair, and stumped round the room, dragging his lower limbs behind him, as though they did not belong to him. They were lifeless. When he returned to his seat he threw himself down. 'Now, Jemima, put up my legs on that chair. I can't stir them myself. I couldn't raise them an inch if you was to promise me a kiss for my pains. There, thank ye; now sit down and be jolly.'
'Sir,' said Mehalah, 'you remember my mother, Mistress Sharland.'
'What! Liddy Vince, pretty cousin Liddy! I should think I did remember her. Why, it is only the other day that she married.'
'I am her daughter, and my age is nineteen.'
'I haven't seen her for—well, never mind how many years. Years don't tell on a man as they do on a woman; they mellow him, but wither her. So you are her daughter, are you? Stand round there by my feet where I can see you.'
He drew his head down among his clothes and peered at her from between his tall white collars. 'You are an uncommon fine girl,' he said, when his observation was completed, 'but not a bit like Liddy. You are more like her mother—she was the deuce of a splendid woman, such eyes, such hair—but she was a——' he hesitated, his courtesy forbade his saying what rose to the tongue.
'A gipsy;' Mehalah supplied the words.
'Well, she was, but she couldn't help it, you know. But that is not what I was about to say. I intended to observe that she was a—little before my time. She was old when I knew her, but I've heard what a beauty she was, and her eyes always remained large and noble, and her hair luxuriant. But women don't improve with age as does good port, and as do men. Well, now, tell me your name.'