“And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took notice of me; was I?” said Bella, contemplating the ankle before mentioned.

“You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming with your little voice, and laying into me with your little bonnet, which you had snatched off for the purpose,” returned her father, as if the remembrance gave a relish to the rum; “you were doing this one Sunday morning when I took you out, because I didn’t go the exact way you wanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, ‘That’s a nice girl; that’s a very nice girl; a promising girl!’ And so you were, my dear.”

“And then he asked my name, did he, pa?”

“Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on other Sunday mornings, when we walked his way, we saw him again, and⁠—and really that’s all.”