Nancy | Page 5

me, and a ray from the candles falls full
upon it. Blear! Well, if his eyes are blear, then henceforth blear must
bear a different signification from the unhandsome one it has hitherto
worn. Henceforth it must mean blue as steel: it must mean clear as a
glass of spring water; keen as a well-tempered knife; kindly as the early
sunshine.
I am so astonished at my discovery, that I remain for full two minutes
staring blankly at the object of it, while he also looks stealthily at me;
then, recollecting my manners, I burrow my face into my chair-bottom,
and so remain until mother's gentle Amen, and a noise of shuffling and
scrambling to their feet on the part of the congregation, tell me that the
end has come.
We all go up to father, and coldly and stiffly kiss him. While I am
waiting for my turn to receive our parent's chilly salute, I steal a second
glance at our guest. Yes, he is old certainly. Despite the youth of his
eyes, despite the uprightness, the utter freedom from superfluous
flesh--from the ugly shaky bulkiness of age--in his tall and stalwart
figure, still he is old--old in the eyes of nineteen--as old as father,
perhaps--though in much better preservation--forty-eight or forty-nine;
for is not his hair iron-gray, and his heavy mustache, and the thick and
silky beard that falls on his broad breast, are they not iron-gray too? I
have dropped my small and unwilling kiss on father's forehead--and
said "good-night" in a tone as suppressedly hostile as his own. Now I
may go. We may all go. I am the last, or I think I am, to pass through
the swing-door. I hurry along the passage to join the rest in the

school-room. I upbraid the boys for the rash impiety of their demeanor.
I feel a foot on my garments behind, and hear a long cracking sound
that I too, too well know to mean gathers.
"You beast!" cried I, in good nervous English, turning sharply round
with my hand raised in act to strike, "that is the third time this week
that you have torn out my--"
I stop dumfounded. If I mean to box the offender's ears, I must raise my
hand considerably higher than it is at present. Angels and ministers of
grace! what has happened? I have called General Sir Roger Tempest a
beast, and offered to cuff him. For a moment, I am dumfounded. Then,
for shyness has never been my besetting sin, and something in the
genial laughter of his eyes reassures me.
I hold out the injured portion of my raiment, and say:
"Look! when you see what you have done, I am sure you will forgive
me; but of course I meant it for Bobby. I never dreamt it was you."
He takes hold of one end of the rent, I of the other, and we both
examine it.
"How exceedingly clumsy of me! how could it have happened? I beg
your pardon ten thousand times."
In his words there is polite remorse and solicitude; in his face only a
friendly mirth. He is old, that is clear. Had he been young, he would
have said, with that variety and suitability of epithets so characteristic
of this generation:
"I am awfully sorry! how awfully stupid of me! what an awful duffer I
am!"
The gas is shining in its garish yellow brightness full down upon us, as
we stand together, illuminating my plain, scorched face, the slatternly
looseness of my hair, and the burnt hole in my gown.

"You will have to give me another," I say, looking up at him and
smiling. I should not have thought of saying it if he had been a young
man, but with a vieux papa one may be at one's ease.
"There is nothing in the world I should like better," he says, with a sort
of hurry and eagerness, not very suggestive of a vieux papa; "but
really--" (seeing me look rather ashamed of my proposition)--"is it
quite hopeless? the damage quite irremediable?"
"On the contrary," reply I, tucking my gathers in, with a graceful
movement, at the band of my gown, "five minutes will make it as good
as new--at least" (casting a disparaging eye over its frayed and
taffy-marked surface), "as good as it ever will be in this world."
A little pause.
"I suppose I have lost my way," he says, thinking, I fancy, that I look
rather eager to be gone. "I am never very good at the geography of a
strange house."
"Yes," say I, promptly; "you came through our door, instead of your
own; shall I show you the way back?"
"Since I have come so far, may not I come a little farther?" he