And so far he judged truly. Blanche loved her father dearly, but she did not guess how great was his love for her, nor how shadowed his life would be if she were gone.
As she gazed at the bowed head beside her, Blanche realized for the first time how great and terrible the coming sorrow was to her father, and she began to understand how true it is that in the partings of life "theirs is the bitterness who stay behind."
The exertion of talking seemed to have been too much for the fragile frame. Presently a violent fit of coughing came on, and again that terrible crimson flow streamed from the white lips and on the deathly face!
The winter storm had now set in, and the weather was cold and dark and cheerless; but the interior of Blanche's room looked warm and bright as Mr. Clifford walked into it, on his return from his lonely ride.
On the floor there lay strewed the Christmas gifts for Glen Eagle, and from her sofa Blanche was having an inspection of them before they were sent away. Ellis was doing duty as show-woman; and Blanche's old gleeful laugh, which had become a rare sound now, was heard occasionally as she listened to her maid's remarks concerning the various beautiful presents, as she held them up for inspection.
Welcoming her papa with the old bright smile, Blanche beckoned him to come and see the nice fur footstool which Miss Prosser had that morning bought for Kirsty's cottage.
Mr. Clifford looked very sad as he came forward and took his place by his daughter's couch. He could not help contrasting the pale fragile form lying there, with the ringing childish laugh, which caused him almost to forget, for the moment, the sad reality which these weeks had brought.
Blanche's quick eye always detected her father's sadness, and she used to try to chase it away by all the loving wiles which she could devise. To the others round her she often talked of dying; but, since the time that she saw her father's distress when the subject was approached, she never had the courage to introduce it again, though there were many things she wanted to say to him.
She kept watching Ellis with wistful eyes as she gathered and carried away from her room the scattered gifts for the peasant friends she loved so well.