“My argument,” continued Tom, “is, let us strive to make them comfortable—let us endeavour to find something in this unfortunate affair to qualify our disappointment and to teach us to believe that, as it has happened, it has happened for the best.”
“Sound philosophy!” cried Dick as triumphantly as if the speech had been his; “and worth more than the loudest shrieks with which human lungs could pierce the ear.”
“Ay, you can talk,” exclaimed my aunt, “but there sits your daughter—safe!”
“Not so safe as you think,” he answered turning shortly round and confronting his daughter and me, who sat unnecessarily close together.
Theresa didn’t change colour, but I flushed beautifully, I can promise you.
“Curling begins afresh at the bank to-morrow,” said uncle Tom to me.
“I am glad to hear it,” I answered, grateful to him for diverting the general attention.
“And they dine with us to-morrow,” he added, addressing his wife.
“Very proper,” broke in his brother; “and were it not for my rooted dislike to leave my house at the mercy of my servants, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to drink to their future happiness in a bumper of the best champagne you’ve got in your cellar. However, I’ll tell you what I mean to do, Tom, and I say it in the presence of witnesses, since it is a verbal agreement; when they have chosen a house I’ll furnish it for them.”
“No, no,” cried Tom.