She ran to the vases and took a great bunch of Pratt’s flowers which she carried in her gloved hand when she went down for the second time to show herself to her father.
This time she tripped lightly. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed. Her bare throat, brown and firm, rose from the soft laces of her dress in its unadorned beauty. The very dress she wore seemed more simple and girlish–but a thousand times more fitting for her wearing.
“Daddy!”
She burst into the dimly lighted room. He wheeled in his chair, removed the pipe from his mouth, and stared at her again.
This time there was a new light in his eyes, as there was in hers. He stood up and something caught him by the throat–or seemed to–and he swallowed hard.
“How do you like me now?” she whispered, stretching her arms out to him.
“My–my little girl!” murmured the old Captain, and his voice broke. “Then–then you are not grown up, after all?”
“Nor do I want to be, for ever and ever so long yet, Daddy!” she cried, and ran to enfold him in her warm embrace.
“Humph!” said the old Captain, confidentially. “I was half afraid of that young person who was just down here, Frances. I can kiss you now without mussing you all up, eh?”
Pratt had stolen out of the room through one of the windows to the veranda.