A Runaway Match
Cherubic Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside majestic Ma, one morning early, having a holiday before him. Pa and the lovely woman had a rather particular appointment to keep.
Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. Bella was up before four, but had no bonnet on. She was waiting at the foot of the stairs—was sitting on the bottom stair, in fact—to receive Pa when he came down, but her only object seemed to be to get Pa well out of the house.
“Your breakfast is ready, sir,” whispered Bella, after greeting him with a hug, “and all you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink it up, and escape. How do you feel, Pa?”
“To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker new to the business, my dear, who can’t make himself quite comfortable till he is off the premises.”
Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe; she stopping on every separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his lips, according to her favourite petting way of kissing Pa.
“How do you feel, my love?” asked R. W. , as she gave him his breakfast.
“I feel as if the fortune-teller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fair little man was turning out as was predicted.”
“Ho! Only the fair little man?” said her father.