A Bookful Of Girls Part 23

"I don't suppose you smoke a pipe," Di remarked, in a strictly conversational tone.

"Well, no; I can't say I do. Why?"

"I only thought I should like to light one for you. You know," she added, confidentially, "girls always light their grandfathers' pipes in books. And I've had so little practice in that sort of thing!"

"In pipes?"

"No--in grandfathers!"

There came a pause, occupied, on Di's part, by a swift, not altogether approving survey of the stiff, high-studded room. This time it was the old gentleman who broke the silence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Good afternoon, Grandfather,' was the apparition's cheerful greeting."]

"I believe you are the young lady who admired that old clodhopper in the picture," he remarked.

"Oh, yes; he was a great darling!"

"He wasn't very handsome."

"No, but--there is always something so dear about a grandfather!"

"Always?"

"Yes; always!" and suddenly Di left her seat, and, taking a few steps forward, she dropped on her knees before him.

"Grandfather," she said, clasping her small gloved hands on his knee, "Grandfather!"

She was meaning to be very eloquent indeed,--that is, if it were to become necessary. She did not dream that that one word, so persuasively spoken, was more eloquent than a whole oration.

"Well, Miss Di?"

"Grandfather, I've a great favour to ask of you, and I should like to have you say 'yes' beforehand!"

He looked down upon her with a heart rendered surprisingly soft by that first word,--and a mind much tickled by the audacity of the rest of it.

"And are you in the habit of getting favours granted in the dark?" he inquired.

"Papa says I usually bag my game!"

Now old Mr. Crosby had been a sportsman in his day, and he was mightily pleased with the little jest. But he only asked:

"And what's your game in this instance, if you please?"

"You!"

"Oh, I! And you want to bag me? Bag me for what?"

"For dinner!"

"Oh, for dinner!"

"Yes! We are all by ourselves to-day, and you'll just make the table even. There's only Papa and Mamma, and Louise, and Beth, and Alice, and the baby." Somehow the succession of sweet, soft names sounded very attractive to the crabbed old man.

"The baby is six years old," Di continued, unconsciously adding another touch to the attractiveness of the picture.

"And what is her name?"

"_His_ name is Horatio. I never liked it very well; it seemed too long for a baby. But, do you know?--I think I shall like it better now."

She was still kneeling before him, with her small gloved hands clasped on his knee. It was clear that she had not the faintest idea of being refused. Yet even had she been somewhat less confident, she might well have taken heart of hope, for, at this point, he gently laid his wrinkled hand upon hers.

"You _will_ come to dinner?" she begged, apparently quite unconscious of the little caress. "We dine at five on Thanksgiving day, and you and I can walk over together. They will all be so surprised,--and so happy!"

"Then they are not expecting me?" and the old man gave her a very piercing look, which did not seem to pierce at all.

"No; they didn't know who it was to be. I only said it was a very important personage."

"Coming in a bag!" he suggested.

"Oh, that's only a sportsman's expression!"

"Indeed! And is it customary nowadays to go a-hunting for your Thanksgiving dinner?"

Di's eyes danced. This was indeed a grandfather worth waiting for! But she only answered demurely:

"That depends upon your quarry!"

Lucky Di, to have hit upon that pretty, old-fas.h.i.+oned word! She had, indeed, read her Sir Walter to good purpose.

Now, Mr. Horatio Crosby had held out stoutly against every appeal of natural affection, of reason, of conscience. He was not a quick-tempered man like his son; he was not, like his daughter-in-law, easily rebuffed; but there was about him a toughness of fibre which yielded neither to blows nor to pressure, and which, for many years, neither friend nor foe had penetrated. And here was this young thing simply ignoring the hitherto impenetrable barrier! The clear young eyes looked straight through it, the fresh young voice made nothing of it, the playful fancies overleapt it. A quarry, indeed! Where had the child got hold of the word?

Of a sudden the old man bent forward and lightly touched the laughing face in token of surrender.

"It's an old bird you've winged, little girl," he said, as he rose to his feet and stepped once more to the bell-rope; and this time he really rang for his coat and overshoes.

"And so you've named this little chap Horatio?"

Dinner was over,--a very pleasant, natural kind of dinner, too, in spite of the difficulty some of the family had found in eating it,--and they were all gathered about a roaring woodfire, fortifying themselves, with the aid of coffee, cigars, and chocolate-drops,--each according to his kind,--for a game of blind-man's-buff. The small scion of the house was seated on his grandfather's knee, playing with his grandfather's fob, after the immemorial habit of small scions.

"Of course we named him Horatio!" It was Mrs. Crosby who answered, and, as her father-in-law looked across at her face with the firelight playing upon it, he seemed to remember that he had always wished for a daughter.

"And what do you call him for short?"

"Just Horatio!" piped up little Alice, who was sitting on the rug at the old gentleman's feet, gently pulling Rollo's long-suffering ears.

"Yes," said Mr. Thomas Crosby; "we have always been proud of the name."