“You didn’t bring me a bit this time!” she cried reproachfully.
“Honey, I forgot it,” he apologised.
“I don’t believe you love me any more, Charlie,” she declared placing her hands on his cheeks and looking steadily into his eyes. “Am I your sweetheart yet?” she asked.
“Of course, dearie, and about the only one I can depend on!”
“La, Charlie, your eyes are red!” she cried in surprise. “Do you cry?”
“Sometimes, when my heart gets too full.”
“Then, I ’ll kiss the red away!” she said as she softly kissed his eyes.
“That’s good, Flora. It will make them better.’
“Now, Pappy,” she said triumphantly, “you say I’m getting too big to cry, and I ain’t but eleven years old, and Charlie’s big as you and he cries.”
Tom took her in his arms and smoothed his hand over her fair hair with a tenderness that had in its trembling touch all the mystery of both mother and father love in which his brooding soul had wrapped her.