“Hang me if I know what the girl would be at!” he said, gruffly.
“I believe, sir, that Miss is entreating your blessing,” says Captain Colquhoun, with his stiffest air.
“There, there, child! God bless you!” says my papa. “Get up, and don’t cry. I want to have a look at my girl.”
I rose as he bade me, and dried my eyes as well as I could, and he led me to the window, to look into my face with the aid of the wax candles which were now set alight under glass shades on the varanda. “The living image of my lost charmer!” he said, kissing me kindly. “Han’t my girl got a kiss for her old father?”
I put my arms about his neck, and was bold enough to kiss him two or three times, but it did not seem to displease him, for he blessed me again, and I think there was tears in his eyes. “I could believe that I saw your mother alive again, child,” he said. “But there’s no need to let Madam know that. ’Twould vex her sorely, poor woman, and we should never hear the end of it. Your coming out has been a sad trial to her, miss.”
Captain Colquhoun coughed somewhat loudly, and Mr Freyne remembered his presence. “Come in, Captain, come in,” he cried. “I want to present you to my daughter.”
“I have had the honour already of meeting Miss, sir, and of offering her some slight service in a sufficiently disagreeable situation, for she was landed at the Gott from Mr Hamlin’s budgero with no means of getting here.”
“What! wasn’t my budgero sent for her, nor so much as a palanqueen to the Gott?” cried my papa, and turned upon Mrs Freyne, who came into the parlour very fine, as I saw to my surprise, in a dressed suit and a fly cap.[05] “Pray, madam, how is it you showed such neglect towards my daughter? Must I be at the pain of giving all my orders myself when I leave home for three or four days? Wasn’t it understood when I married you that you was to relieve me of all these points of ceremony? What else did I do it for?”
I took the words as a jest, though they seemed to me harsh enough to hear even then, but Mrs Freyne shut her fan with a snap that bade fair to break the sticks, and said, “Indeed, sir, I can’t guess, no more than I can tell why I married you.”
“Oh yes, madam, you can,” says my papa, “or your clothes and jewels would tell it for you.” He seemed about to continue, but I catched his hand boldly.