“What have I done?” he exclaimed. “Oh, it is you, Pauline! How inconsiderate of you to sit like this on the lawn!”
“But we always sit on the chairs, dad,” said Pauline, springing to her feet.
He forgot that he had made the remark. He laid his hand on her shoulder.
“I have been having a delightful time,” he said—“truly a delightful time. All this morning I have been in contact with noble thoughts. My child, can you realize, even dimly, what it is to dip into those mines of wealth—those mines of illimitable wisdom and greatness and strength and power? Oh, the massiveness of the intellects of the old classic writers! Their lofty ideas with regard to time and eternity—where can their like be found?”
Pauline yawned.
“Are you tired?” asked her father.
“No—only worried,” she answered.
She did not know why she made the latter remark; but at the same time she was perfectly well aware that anything she said to her father was safe, as he would absolutely forget it in the course of the next minute. He was roused now from his visions of the past by a certain pathos in the little face. He put his arm round the child and drew her to him.
“My dear, pretty little girl,” he said.
“Am I pretty?” asked Pauline.