"Yes, yes; you will stay with me, I am sure. I have a pony on which you shall ride, and no end of books with pictures to show you."
"Are you going to live here now?"
"I am. Does that please you? Do you like me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I think you queer."
"My face, ma'am?"
"Your face and all about you: You have long red hair."
"Auburn hair, if you please: mamma, calls it auburn, or golden, and so do all her friends. But even with my 'long red hair'" (and he waved his mane with a sort of triumph--tawny he himself well knew that it was, and he was proud of the leonine hue), "I cannot possibly be queerer than is your ladyship."
"You call me queer?"
"Certainly."
(After a pause), "I think I shall go to bed."
"A little thing like you ought to have been in bed many hours since; but you probably sat up in the expectation of seeing me?"
"No, indeed."
"You certainly wished to enjoy the pleasure of my society. You knew I was coming home, and would wait to have a look at me."
"I sat up for papa, and not for you."
"Very good, Miss Home. I am going to be a favourite: preferred before papa soon, I daresay."
She wished Mrs. Bretton and myself good-night; she seemed hesitating whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action were too much.
"For shame, Mr. Graham!" was her indignant cry, "put me down!"--and when again on her feet, "I wonder what you would think of me if I were to treat you in that way, lifting you with my hand" (raising that mighty member) "as Warren lifts the little cat."
So saying, she departed.