"So it shall, father." There was no shade of impatience in Frances's tone. "We will talk of Fluff presently. But it so happens that my letter was of importance. Father, you remember Philip Arnold?"
"Arnold--Arnold? Dimly, my dear, dimly. He was here once, wasn't he? I rather fancy that I heard of his death. What about him, Frances?"
Frances placed her hand to her fast-beating heart. Strange--her father remembered dimly the man she had thought of, and dreamed of, and secretly mourned for for ten long years.
"Philip Arnold is not dead," she said, still trying to steady her voice. "It was a mistake, a false rumor. He has explained it--my letter was from him."
"Really, my love? Don't you think there is a slight draught coming from behind that curtain? I am so sensitive to draughts, particularly after hot days. Oblige me, Frances, my dear, by drawing that curtain a little more to the right. Ah, that is better. So Arnold is alive. To tell the truth, I don't remember him very vividly, but of course I'm pleased to hear that he is not cut off in his youth. A tall, good-looking fellow, wasn't he? Well, well, this matter scarcely concerns us. How about the dimity in the room which will be Fluff's? My dear Frances, what is the matter? I must ask you not to fidget so."
"Father, you must listen to me. I am going to say something which will startle you. All these quiet years, all the time which has gone by and left only a dim memory of a certain man to you, have been spent by me smothering down regrets, stifling my youth, crushing what would have made me joyous and womanly--for Philip Arnold has not been remembered at all dimly by me, father, and when I heard of his death I lived through something which seemed to break the spring of energy and hope in me. I did not show it, and you never guessed, only you told me to-day that I had never been young, that I had never been either child or girl. Well, all that is over now, thank God! hope has come back to me, and I have got my lost youth again. You will have two young creatures about the house, father, and won't you like it?"
"I don't know," said the squire. He looked up at his daughter in some alarm; her words puzzled him; he was suddenly impressed too by the brightness in her eyes, and the lovely coloring on her cheeks.