He
appeared this time in a purely paternal character. He came to call upon
his only child. Before paying this visit the Captain had improved the
shining hour by a careful study of the current and two or three back
volumes of the Post-Office and Trade Directories; but all his researches
in those interesting volumes had failed to reveal to him the existence of
any metropolitan Meynells.
"The Meynells whom Sheldon knows may be in the heart of the country," he
said to himself, after these futile labours.
It was a fine autumnal morning, and as Miss Paget was at home and
disengaged, her affectionate father suggested that she should take a walk
with him in Kensington Gardens. Such a promenade had very little
attraction for the young lady; but she had a vague idea that she owed a
kind of duty to her father not remitted by his neglect of all duties to
her; so she assented with a smile, and went out with him, looking very
handsome and stylish in her simple but fashionable attire, no part of
which had been provided by the parent she accompanied.
The Captain surveyed her with some sense of family pride. "Upon my word,
my dear, you do me credit!" he exclaimed, with a somewhat patronising
kindness of tone and manner; "indeed any man might be proud of such a
daughter. You are every inch a Paget."
"I hope not, papa," said the girl involuntarily; but the Captain's more
delicate instincts had been considerably blunted in the press and jostle
of life, and he did not feel the sting of this remark.
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