In the hour of recreation Emmeline, declaring it was much too hot for the garden, sought her mother's private sitting-room, with the intention of asking where she could find her father. To her great delight, the question was arrested on her lips, for he was there. She seated herself on his knee, and remained there for some minutes without speaking—only looking up in his face with the most coaxing expression imaginable.
"Well, Emmeline, what great favor are you going to ask me?" said Mr. Hamilton, smiling; "some weighty boon, I am quite sure."
"Indeed, papa, and how do you know that?"
"I can read it in your eyes."
"My eyes are treacherous tell-tales then, and you shall not see them any more," she replied, laughing, and shaking her head till her long bright ringlets completely hid her eyes and blushing cheeks. "But have they told you the favor I am going to ask?"
"No," replied her father, joining in her laugh; "they leave that to your tongue."
"I can read more, I think," said Mrs. Hamilton; "I am very much mistaken, if I do not know what Emmeline is going to ask."
"Only that—that—" still she hesitated, as if afraid to continue, and her mother added—
"That papa will not be very angry with Percy; Emmeline, is not that the boon you have no courage to ask?"
A still deeper glow mounted to the child's fair cheek, and throwing her arms round her father's neck, she said, coaxingly and fondly—