"And now, how have you been feeling during the last three months, months which have seemed well-nigh interminable to me?"
"Remarkably well, father."
"You look much stronger, I think. Besides—"
"What, my dear father?"
"It may be only a doting father's fancy, fathers have so many of them, but—"
"Let me hear what it is, father."
"It seems to me that you are even prettier than when I went away."
"That must be a doting father's fancy, especially as it implies that I was pretty before you left."
"And who ever doubted it, mademoiselle?"
"I, myself, in the first place."