"Yes; mamma wouldn't be at all sorry. Fiddlers are not Baronets, but anything is better than haberdashing. I'm not ashamed of it, you know." She had subjected herself gratuitously to her own suspicion that she might be, and resented it.
Her father looked at her with an amused face; looked down at these social fads of poor humanity from the height of his Olympus. If he knew anything about the Unionist Home Ruler's aspirations for Lætitia, he said nothing. Then he asked a natural question—what was the little galvanic battery? Tishy gave her account of it, but before she had done the Professor was thinking about Sabines or Lucanians. The fact is that Tishy was never at her best with her father. She was always so anxious to please him that she tumbled over her own anxiety, and in this present case didn't tell her story as well as she might have done. He began considering how he could get back to the shreds of Bopsius, if any were left, and looked at his watch.
"Well, that was very funny—very funny!" said he absently. "Now, don't forget the heroic rescue before you go."
Tishy perceived the delicate hint, and picked up the paper with "I declare I was forgetting all about it!" But she had scarcely cast her eyes on it when she gave a cry. "Oh, papa, papa; it's Sally! Oh dear!" And then: "Oh dear, oh dear! I can hardly see to make it out. But I'm sure she's all right! They say so." And kept on trying to read. Her father did what
was, under the circumstances, the best thing to do—took the paper from her, and as she sank back with a beating heart and flushed face on the chair she had just risen from read the paragraph to her as follows:
"Heroic Rescue from Drowning at St. Sennans-on-Sea.—Early this morning, as Mr. Algernon Fenwick, of Shepherd's Bush, at present on a visit at the old town, was walking on the pier-end, at the point where there is no rail or rope for the security of the public, his foot slipped, and he was precipitated into the sea, a height of at least ten feet. Not being a swimmer, his life was for some minutes in the greatest danger; but fortunately for him his stepdaughter, Miss Rosalind Nightingale, whose daring and brilliant feats in swimming have been for some weeks past the admiration and envy of all the visitors to the bathing quarter of this most attractive of south-coast watering-places, was close at hand, and without a moment's hesitation plunged in to his rescue. Encumbered as she was by clothing, she was nevertheless able to keep Mr. Fenwick above water, and ultimately to reach a life-buoy that was thrown from the pier. Unfortunately, having established Mr. Fenwick in a position of safety, she thought her best course would be to return to the pier. She was unable in the end to reach it, and her strength giving way, she was picked up, after an immersion of more than twenty minutes, by the boats that put off from the shore. It will readily be imagined that a scene of great excitement ensued, and that a period of most painful anxiety followed, for it was not till nearly four hours afterwards that, thanks to the skill and assiduity of Dr. Fergus Maccoll, of 22a, Albion Crescent, assisted by Dr. Vereker, of London, the young lady showed signs of life. We are happy to say that the latest bulletins appear to point to a speedy and complete recovery, with no worse consequences than a bad fright. We understand that the expediency of placing a proper railing at all dangerous points on the pier is being made the subject of a numerously signed petition to the Town Council."
"That seems all right," said the Professor. And he said nothing further, but remained rubbing his shaved surface in a sort of compromising way—a way that invited or permitted exception to be taken to his remark.
"All right? Yes, but—oh, papa, do think what might have happened! They might both have been drowned."
"But they weren't!"