Part 23 (1/2)

”Why, certainly, my dear! A little talk, I suppose, you mean.”

Without heeding this undignified interruption, Miss Eva gave her parent a very accurate report of the dramatic scene in the boat the evening before, of which she had been an interested auditor.

”Of course,” she added, in conscientious defence, ”I didn't want them to suppose I was sleeping, but if I had opened my eyes it would have been very embarra.s.sing for us all.”

”Humph!” said her father. ”Does Rose know that you were awake?”

”No, I have not broached the topic to her,” replied Eva, with an affectation of maturer speech.

”Humph!” said the gentleman again; a quizzical glance at his younger daughter breaking for a moment through the gloom with which he was meditating the fate of the elder one. ”Well, I am glad you 'broached'

it to me; I shall--”

”Papa,” interrupted Eva, with bated breath, glancing down from the window at which she stood, ”there is Allan now.”

”_Allan_! You are mightily well acquainted. I see I must prepare to make an unconditional surrender.”

He walked in a nervous and disquieted manner out of the room. At the head of the stairs he encountered Mademoiselle DeBerczy, on her way up.

”Helene,” he said, with the desperation of one who in the fifty-ninth minute after the eleventh hour does not entirely despair of a gleam of hope, ”I wish you would tell me in two words if Rose loves Allan Dunlop. Does she?”

”_Don't_ she!” exclaimed Helene, with explosive earnestness, and the two words were sufficient. Their effect was not lessened by subsequent occurrences. On opening the drawing-room door Rose hastened to his side, turning her back, as she did so, upon a young man of ardent but entirely self-respectful aspect, standing not far distant.

”Oh, Papa!” she cried in her extremity, ”save me from him. He loves me!”

”Is that the only reason?” asked her father.

”No; there is a greater one. _I love him_!”

”Ah!” murmured Allan softly, ”it is to _me_ you should say that.”

”She shall have unlimited opportunities for saying it to you,”

observed the elder gentleman, with kindly promptness, but with a sore heart. ”After a while,” he added, turning to Allan, with his hand on the door k.n.o.b, ”I will be glad to see you.”

In this sentence, which is an interesting ill.u.s.tration of the power of manners over mind, the word ”will” was purposely subst.i.tuted for the customary ”shall.” It was only by an active effort of will that the good Commodore could be glad to see his daughter's suitor. But their interview, if it did not prove a death-blow to his prejudices, at least inflicted serious injuries upon them, from which they never afterwards recovered. He was won over by the young fellow's manliness, which, when contrasted with mere gentlemanliness, apart from it, puts the latter at a striking disadvantage, even in the mind of the confirmed aristocrat. There was also a tinge of absurdity in the idea of being ashamed of a son-in-law of whom his country was beginning to be proud. Perhaps it was as well that he should arrive unaided at this opinion, for Allan had won the rest of the household to his side, and a belief in which one is entirely alone must contain something more than mere pride of birth in order to support its possessor in comfort.

Even the loyal Tredway would have failed to respond to his imagined need, for this faithful servitor had long since discovered that the happiness of his young mistress was more to be desired than the preservation of any fancied superiority on the part of the family to which he was devotedly attached.

CHAPTER XIX.

AT STAMFORD COTTAGE.

Not more than three miles from the Falls of Niagara, between them and Queenston, lies the pretty village of Stamford, in which, over sixty years ago, Upper Canada's Lieutenant-Governor built the summer home which became his favourite place of abode. Set in the midst of a vast natural park, its appearance corresponded perfectly to Mrs. Jameson's description of an elegant villa, framed in the interminable forests.

Here, within sound of the great cataract and, on clear, typically Canadian days, within sight of York, thirty miles distant across the lake, Sir Peregrine and Lady Sarah Maitland found a grateful retreat from the cares of public life. Not that they loved society less, but solitude more; especially, to use a Hibernicism, when that solitude was shared. In the early summer of 1827 Stamford Cottage was filled with people after its pretty mistress's own heart. If she suspected one of her guests of being also after the heart of another, it did not endear him the less to her. Why should she not remove from the paths of her _proteges_ the scarcely perceptible obstacles which prevented them from being as happily married as herself? But one day she discovered that the role of match-maker is as arduous as it is alluring, and with this she went at once to her husband's study.

”Dear,” she began, ”I have become greatly interested in a young man, and I thought it only right that you should know about it before it goes any further.”

”Ah, yes, certainly.” The gentleman looked rather abstracted. ”And the young fellow--is he interested too?”

”Oh, interested is a feeble word. He is desperately in love.”