MR. HOLWOOD APPROACHED THE CHAIR AND INTRODUCED HIMSELF.
'Allow me to introduce my daughter,' said Holwood.
'Odds life!' exclaimed the baronet, 'I congratulate you. A charming face. But, bless me! Holwood, I did not know you had been married.'
'I had the misfortune to lose my wife early,' answered Winefred's father in some confusion.
'Ah! by gad! glad it was not I. What I should do without Lady Wardroper to dress me and help me feed I do not know. No valet comes quite up to a wife in these matters. The wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. Gad! I'm glad I did not lose my wife. But, there, you are no cripple, so it don't concern you. Have you married again?'
'No, Sir Barnaby.'
'Gad! I like that. Frank, my boy, mark that! It might go among "The Percy Anecdotes" as an example of fidelity.'
'Sir,' said Frank, 'if the mother at all resembled the daughter, he could do no other.'
'Very well put. The boy has wit,' said the baronet. 'Who was she? Any one I know?—or the family?'