Note 01 — Chapter IX · TREATING OF LOVERS AND FRIENDS.

The remainder of the afternoon I spent in scribbling these pages to my Amelia, until my eyes ached so badly I could write no more, and also (I’ll confess it) in reading again and again the dear delightful letter that assured me of Fraser’s penitence and faithfulness. My beloved girl will wonder that I could take so much pleasure in that which had so sadly disobliged the dear kind gentleman I had seen so lately, and indeed I was ashamed of my own delight, and astonished at it. I put the letter in my bosom at last, and crept like a mouse into the saloon, which was not lighted, since Mrs Freyne was spending the evening abroad. But outside in the varanda sat my papa, meditating, I fear, on the humours of his troublesome girl, and though he had forbid me his presence I could not endure not to be near him. Seated, therefore, on the straw matting (this is used instead of a carpet), close to the open door that leads on the varanda, and sheltered by the antiporta, I ventured to watch him, with all the love and reverence in my gaze that ought to, and does, fill my grateful heart on the slightest thought of him. He appeared troubled, and I knew that he felt the want of the Captain’s company, who is so often with him of an evening, but before very long Mr Dash was announced, and the two gentlemen sent for their hookers[01] (have I said that these are a strange sort of tobacco-pipe, with a vessel of water and a long tube like a serpent and all manner of outlandish additions belonging to ’em?) and began to smoke.