"It's not of myself I am thinking, my darling. Don't do me that injustice, or I shall behave like a fool. It's only you I am thinking of."
"Oh, is that all, papa? Do you know that, if it were not for your sake,
I could sing a song about it!"
"Ah! you don't know what you make so light of. Poverty is not so easy to endure."
"Papa," said Adela, solemnly, "if you knew how awful things looked to me a little while ago—but it's all gone now!—the whole earth black and frozen to the heart, with no God in it, and nothing worth living for—you would not wonder that I take the prospect of poverty with absolute indifference—yes, if you will believe me, with something of a strange excitement. There will be something to battle with and beat."
And she stretched out a strong, beautiful white arm—from which the loose open sleeve fell back, as if with that weapon of might she would strike poverty to the earth; but it was only to adjust the pillow, which had slipped sideways from the loved head.
"But Mr. Armstrong will not want to marry you now, Addie."
"Oh, won't he?" thought Adela; or at least I think she thought so. But she said, rather demurely, and very shyly:
"But that won't be any worse than it was before; for you know you would never have let me marry him anyhow."
"Oh! yes, I would, in time, Adela. I am not such a brute as you take me for."
"Oh! you dear darling papa!" cried the poor child, and burst into tears, with her head on her father's bosom. And he began comforting her so sweetly, that you would have thought she had lost everything, and he was going to give her all back again.