“I know it, papa; I know that you are thinking now of the rich man throwing into the treasury, and the widow’s mite, and I will try to be the widow’s mite. Am I staying too long, papa?” she continued; “must I go now? perhaps you wish to have your book again?”
“No, my dear child, I am in no hurry to resume my book; I am quite pleased to have a little talk with you; besides, if I had not heard your little tap at the door just then, I meant to have sent for you—I have got something to show you.”
“To show me, papa?”
“Yes, my love; something which will interest you, but will also bring to your mind sorrowful recollections.”
Leila looked up anxiously in her papa’s face. “Is it about Dash?” she said; “has any one answered the advertisement? or Peggy?—but no, about Peggy, that is impossible; poor Peggy!”
Mr. Howard smiled mournfully as he answered. “No, my child, I have heard nothing of them.”
Leila continued: “I have tried to bear it, papa, and not to give way; and I have prayed to God, and He has strengthened me, and often I feel quite comforted, sometimes I feel quite happy, just as if it had never been; but often when I am talking and laughing I am not really happy—I am only pretending, for Selina and Matilda always look so distressed when I am sorrowful; but night is the worst—I always think of Peggy at night;—and how kind she was to me; and there is nobody to be made sorrowful then, and so I often cry very much; but I won’t talk of it any more, and I am forgetting you had something to show me;” and she hastily brushed the tears from her eyes.
Her papa carefully unfolded a small paper which he took from his pocket-book, and showed Leila a very few small seeds.
“Flower-seeds?” she asked, inquiringly; “are they not, papa?”
“Yes, my love, they are the seeds of Clara’s flower.”