Olive would probably have made a petulant and passionate reply, but at
that moment visitors were coming up the drive.

'It's papa,' cried Olive.

'And he is with mamma,' said Violet; and she tripped after Olive.

Mr. Barton, a tall, handsome man, seemed possessed of all the beauty of
a cameo, and Olive had inherited his high aquiline nose and the moulding
of his romantic forehead; and his colour, too. He wore a flowing beard,
and his hair and beard were the colour of pale _cafe-au-lait_. Giving a
hand to each daughter, he said:

'Here is learning and here is beauty. Could a father desire more? And
you, Violet, and you, May, are about to break into womanhood. I used to
kiss you in old times, but I suppose you are too big now. How
strange--how strange! There you are, a row of brunettes and blondes, who
before many days are over will be charming the hearts of all the young
men in Galway. I suppose it was in talking of such things that you spent
the morning?'

'Our young charges have been, I assure you, very busy all the morning.
We are not as idle as you think, Mr. Barton,' said the nun in a tone of
voice that showed that she thought Mr. Barton's remark ill-considered.
'We have been arranging the stage for the representation of a little
play that your daughter Alice composed.'

'Oh yes, I know; she wrote to me about it. _King Cophetua_ is the name,
isn't it? I am very curious indeed, for I have set Tennyson's ballad to