Publisher's Synopsis
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Mr. Rapham's View Of Political Economy. Itghtmares, however, pass with the darkness that gives them birth. Next morning both father and daughter awoke to a cheerful aspect of things. There was the going home to begin with, the first real home of their lives; then the journey, with its thousand and one little incidents, amused these inexperienced travellers. Mr. Rapham, exiled for the better part of his existence from European civilization, showed asnaive an interest in everything as Rapha. Whilst the steamer glided gently from Ostend to Dover he grew more and more talkative. What a good thing, he said to himself, that this daughter of his had a quick understanding ! She saw the gist of a matter at once; no occasion for beating about the bush, or roundabout explanations. There would be little difficulties to get over at first; hardly likely that a delicately reared girl of twenty, and a man who had been knocking about in semi-savage countries as many years, should understand each other to begin with. But she had her wits about her; she was fully alive to the advantages of her position; she would see that it was to her own interest to humour him as he intended to humour her. ' I will tell you what it is, ' he began, as they settled themselves in easy-chairson deck, ' we shall do things handsomely, of course. I have not come back to England to lead a beggarly life; but we will begin where we mean to leave off?we will draw a line. Now there is one thing I want you to understand, Rapha: no charities.' She looked rather diverted than shocked, this time. The incongruity of her father's speech tickled her fancy. Although so young she knew something of the world, and the thought at once struck her, as if it were possible to repudiate charities in England ...
