This harangue of Ned's set them both at their ease as though they had known each other all their lives.
"And may I ask, Miss Fitzgerald, if this conscientious brother of yours gave an equally accurate description of his old school-fellow?" said George, laughing.
"Mary, don't tell.... He'll murder me...."
"I was instructed all the way along to be particularly kind and attentive to a dapper...."
"Yes, dapper, Mr. Howard; I remember the word distinctly. A dapper little old gentleman with a bald head and only one eye, who was as deaf as a post, but would not allow any one to consider him so. I was led to understand that he made excellent company at table, only that he simply followed out his own train of thought, and his remarks consequently were generally rather _mal-à-propos_; and in fact quite a lot of other things that I cannot remember, save that I was to take him his drops every morning at half-past eleven precisely, and always put six lumps of sugar in his coffee, and none in his tea."
There was a merry dinner-party that evening at the hotel, and a long ramble by the beach afterwards under the moon.
Mary had a great deal of Ned's happy nature in her, and between the two, what with sailing, and riding, and long strolls, George could not well help throwing off his despondency. The light soon came back to the eye, the color to the cheek, the spring to the step, the gaiety to the young heart, the belief that, after all, life was not such a bad thing, and that there were pleasant places even in this miserable world for those who sought them in the right spirit.
"Your friend George is getting quite gay," remarked Mary one evening, as brother and sister sat alone, during the temporary absence of the subject of that young lady's remark.
"Yes, poor fellow. He was in a sad way when I dropped on him. Going to the dev--I mean the grave, fast."
"Oh! I don't know. Put his foot in it somehow."
"In the wrong box, of course. How stupid you women are!"
That gentleman looked ineffable disgust at his beautiful sister, whose eyes were fixed a little anxiously on his. Then taking the peachy cheeks between both hands, he drew her face up to his own and kissed her, saying, "There, Mary.... There are only two women in the world to whom I would do that.... You are one--"