"Look here, you young barbarian, you revolutionary,--what do you mean? What makes you talk in that way of one of the best and sweetest young ladies in the country? I won't have it from you, sir, _this_ Lady Rosemary Granton, _this_ Lady indeed." "Oh! you know quite well, dad, what I mean," I continued, a little bored. "Harry is no angel, and I doubt not but Lady Rosemary is by far too good for him. But,--you know,--you cannot fail to have heard the stories that are flying over the country of her cantrips;--some of them, well, not exactly pleasant. And, allowing fifty percent for exaggeration, there is still a lot that would be none the worse of considerable discounting to her advantage." "Tuts, tush and nonsense! Foolish talk most of it! The kind of stuff that is garbled and gossiped about every popular woman. The girl is up-to-date, modern, none of your drawing-room dolls. I admit that she has go in her, vim, animal spirits, youthful exuberance and all that. She may love sport and athletics, but, but,--you, yourself, spend most of your time in pursuit of these same amusements. Why not she?" "Why! father, these are the points I admire in her,--the only ones, I may say. But, oh! what's the good of going over it all? I know, you know,--everybody knows;--her flirtations, her affairs; every rake in London tries to boast of his acquaintance with her and bandies her name over his brandy and soda, and winks." "Look here, George," put in my father angrily, "you forget yourself. These stories are lies, every one of them! Lady Rosemary is the daughter of my dearest, my dead friend. Very soon, she will be your sister." "Yes! I know,--so let us not say any more about it. It is Harry and she for it, and, if they are pleased and an old whim of yours satisfied,--what matters it to an ordinary, easy-going, pipe-loving, cold-blooded fellow like me?" "Whim, did you say? Whim?" cried my father, flaring up and clenching his hands excitedly. "Do you call the vow of a Brammerton a whim? The pledged word of a Granton a whim? Whim, be damned." For want of words to express himself, my father dropped into a chair and drummed his agitated fingers on the arms of it. I rose and went over to him, laying my hand lightly on his shoulder. Poor old dad! I had not meant to hurt his feelings. After all, he was the dearest of old-fashioned fellows and I loved his haughty, mid-Victorian ways. "There, there, father,--I did not mean to say anything that would give offence. I take it all back. I am sorry,--indeed I am." He looked up at me and his face brightened once more. "'Gad, boy,--I'm glad to hear you say it. I know you did not mean anything by your bruskness. You are an impetuous, headstrong young devil though,--with a touch of your mother in you,--and, 'gad, if I don't like you the more for it.