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“Daddy I call that something like a man! Don’t you?” Her colour was high and her eyes were blazing. She looked happy when her father echoed her enthusiasm:

“I do! daughter. That was the action of a gallant gentleman!” There was a silence of perhaps half a minute. Then Colonel Ogilvie spoke:

“But why, my dear, did you tell this to me?”

“I had to tell some one, Daddy. It is too splendid to enjoy all one’s self; and I was afraid if I told Mother she might not understand—she’s only a woman you know, and might put a wrong construction on my telling her, and so worry herself about me. And I didn’t dare to tell Aunt Judy, for she’s so chock full of romance that she would have simply gone crazy and chaffed me out of all reason. There is no holding back Aunt Judy when she is chasing after a romance! And besides, Daddy dear” here she took his arm and looked up in his face “I wanted you to know that Lord Athlyne is a gentleman.” Her father frowned:

“Why should I know—or care?”

“Not on your own part Daddy—but—but only because I want you to. It is hard to explain, but I think you took a prejudice against him from the first; and you see it makes it less awkward to be coupled with a man’s name, when the name and the man are good ones.” The Colonel’s frown was this time one of puzzlement.