“Dear me,” she said, jumping up with a yawn, “I think that’s a dreadful long-tailed prayer,—don’t you, Cousin Mary?”
“Now I must kiss mamma good night,” she announced, when she was tucked up at last.
“But mamma kissed you good night before you came up.”
“O, so she did. Yes, I ’member. Well, it’s papa I’ve got to kiss. I knew there was somebody.”
I looked at her in perplexity.
“Why, there!” she said, “in the upper drawer,—my pretty little papa in a purple frame. Don’t you know?”
I went to the bureau-drawer, and found in a case of velvet a small ivory painting of her father. This I brought, wondering, and the child took it reverently and kissed the pictured lips.
“Faith,” I said, as I laid it softly back, “do you always do this?”
“Do what? Kiss papa good night? O yes, I’ve done that ever since I was a little girl, you know. I guess I’ve always kissed him pretty much. When I’m a naughty girl he feels real sorry. He’s gone to heaven. I like him. O yes, and then, when I’m through kissing, mamma kisses him too.”