In another corner of the room Bob Apley is "spooning" most suggestively with the same Miss MacArgent whose "fish-hooks" he has just been ridiculing so mercilessly. This of course is pardonable according to the world's wise indulgent maxims, especially when we consider that Miss MacArgent's father's income, daily, is almost identical with the amount of dollars and cents that find their way to the pockets of the impecunious Bob in a whole year.
Besides Emily is rather a good-looking specimen of the "foreign" belles that winter in Ottawa, and some one even said last winter that one of the Governor-General's Aides-de Camp and she—oh! we all know how the green-eyed monster tortured the hearts of the poor belles of countless seasons, when they saw their indisputable rights usurped by a comparative stranger. The two Misses Begg, for instance, who have been twenty-five and twenty-six respectively for the last eight years, waiting for the turn in their lives, that will never come, have cause for bitter complaint. The same faces are here that are ever on exhibition as the champion tennis player, the champion skater, another an unrivalled waltzer, and some more distinguished vocalists and instrumental performers. These grow wearisome once the novelty wears off. There is nothing in them besides the foam that blows away after a little and leaves no trace of its once august presence.
We will make our adieus gladly to the affected civil servants, the young embryo professionals, the rich independent bachelors, the corpulent papas and mamas, the famous tennis, skating, singing, dancing and playing heroines, and go joyfully back to the snug little parlor of Henry Rayne, where sits the only one sensible girl we have seen to-night.
She has ceased playing, and is now sitting by a low table with her lovely head bent earnestly over a lap full of wool-work. The little clock goes ticking on through the noiseless moments that come and go and still her busy fingers ply hurriedly through the stitches. At last it is ten o'clock and instinctively she rises, puts away her wools and needle, and goes over to the chair which yet supports the sleeping figure of Henry Rayne.
"Good night, Grandpapa," she says softly in his ear.
He hears the low sweet whisper. Her voice would penetrate the depth of death itself for him, he fancies. She said "Grandpapa." She only calls him that when she is sad, whenever a sense of bitter loneliness fills her heart, making her miss a kind mother and her dear handsome father most.
He opens his eyes instantly and raises his hand to draw the pretty bowed head closer still to his.
"Good-night, my dear little child. How stupid of me to have dozed here all night leaving you by yourself."
"Don't fret, Grandpa dear, I love your company, and all that, but remember I am never less alone than when alone, and an evening by myself is never lost to me."
"No, my pretty one, but you must grow tired some day thinking so incessantly, I must try and distract you; it is dreadful of me to keep you housed up, so secluded, when there is so much for your youth and beauty to enjoy outside. May be I'm responsible for many a sigh you've heaved lately, but it never struck me you see, my pretty darling, that our sentiments and sympathies run so widely apart, it is not very surprising if an old prosy bachelor should forget to ferret out the pleasures of youth, to bestow them on a fair young beautiful thing like you,"