"Good morning, papa."
She was very much embarrassed, she did not know why. She hoped he would not look at her; but he did, and kissed her, and returned to his work.
"Dear me!" he said, "that I, an old man, should have received such a compliment! A young lady getting up at a prodigiously early hour, and dressing herself in her very smartest way, in order to come down and make my breakfast!"
"Shall I pour out your coffee now, papa?" she said, with a great blush.
"Yes, you may, my dear. But don't put anchovy into it instead of cream. I make the suggestion because I see you are a little disturbed. It is the early rising; or the chill of the autumn; or the remembrance of last Sunday's sermon, I daresay."
She did not speak a word, but placed the coffee at his end of the table, and returned to her seat. When he had finished his cartridge-making, he sate down, and, as a preliminary to breakfast, swallowed a mouthful of the coffee. The next moment there was an exclamation of horror—he ran to the sideboard, seized a bottle of hock that had been left from yesterday's dinner, hurriedly filled a coffee-cup with the wine, and drank off the contents—his face all the while in contortions. Dove sat silent and wilful, with a smile on her lips, and a hot flush on her cheeks. She would neither look at him nor speak to him.
"Cayenne pepper!" he gasped, taking another gulp of the cold Rhine wine.
She only played with her teaspoon.
"You might have killed me, you malicious creature!" he cried, amid intervals of coughing. "Cayenne! Well, don't suppose that you would have got much out of my life-insurance!"
At this she rose and walked to the door—proud, spiteful, half laughing, and half crying.