"Can't you understand," he continued in a softened tone, "that I would
willingly give him anything in return for his kindness--except my
eldest daughter?"
"That is a gift he would never value. A society man might do so, but
the idea of a young fellow of talent and energy and ambition and
brains looking at a little goose like me!"
The Commodore laughed. "No doubt it would be a great hardship for him
to look at you; but young men of talent, ambition and that sort of
thing are not afraid of hardship. In fact they grow to love it. So you
think he would not value the gift?" He laughed again very heartily.
"I am perfectly certain," declared the young girl, with impressive
earnestness, "that he will never stoop to ask you for it."
"Then there is nothing more to be said," replied the Commodore, with
an air of great relief. "The whole question could not be more
satisfactorily settled. You are my own loyal little girl and--and you
don't think me a dreadfully cross old bear, do you?"
She went straight to his arms. "How can I help it," she asked, with
her customary bright smile, "when you give me such a bearish hug?"
But alone in her room, the smile vanished in a tempest of fast-coming
tears.
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