"Then I should like to read him. What sort of things?"
"He makes you see how beautiful Nature is: I can't explain it exactly, but if you take it right it has a sort of soothing uplifting influence on you."
"Yes, I've felt that sometimes, especially since we went to live at Abington. But—perhaps it's because I'm too young—I don't think you can enjoy it so much alone."
He looked at her in some surprise. "Have you found that out already?" he said. "I found it out after Mother died. I was frightfully unhappy. I went away by myself to some of the places we'd been to together. But it made me unhappier still. In fact, it spoilt the memory of those places for me till I went there again years afterwards, with Cara and B. Then I got back my first impression of them."
She snuggled up to him. "Take me to them, sometime, Daddy," she said.
"Yes, I will, darling. You were too young then. I think perhaps we might go this autumn. It was in September that she and I were married. How happy we were! She had planned out where we were to go to. Mostly out-of-the-way beautiful places. I suppose I had been too busy amusing myself, with other people, to want to go to places simply because they were beautiful, before. But she taught me to love the beauty of Nature, though for a time after she died it did nothing for me."
"Perhaps it doesn't when you're unhappy and alone. Do you think Caroline loves it in the same way as Mother did, Daddy?"
He thought for a moment. "She gets it from her, I suppose," he said. "Perhaps she has it even more strongly. She's going to make it the chief thing in her life, you know, she and Maurice together. And one doesn't feel that she is wrong in doing it."
"Of course, she has tried the other," she said, after a pause.
He smiled at her. "Are you thinking that it wouldn't be enough for you?" he asked. "I don't think it would, darling; it wouldn't have been enough for Mother and me—a refreshment—perhaps the best sort of refreshment, while we were young, and something to come to more and more if we had grown old together. At any rate, you'll have your taste of pleasure, as Cara and B had it, and you'll be right to enjoy it, as they did. It did neither of them any harm and it won't do you any harm."