"Bring me that book that lies yonder on the settee," he commanded.
She brought it.
"Now," said he, "bring that stool and set yourself down here close at my knee, and let me see if I can keep you out of mischief for an hour or two."
"May I get a book to read, papa?" she asked timidly.
"No," said he shortly. "You may just do what I bid you, and nothing more nor less."
She sat down as he directed, with her face turned toward him, and tried to amuse herself with her own thoughts, and watching the expression of his countenance as he read on and on, turning leaf after leaf, too much interested in his book to take any further notice of her.
"How handsome my papa is!" thought the little girl, gazing with affectionate admiration into his face. And then she sighed, and tears trembled in her eyes again. She admired her father, and loved him, "oh! so dearly," as she often whispered to herself; but would she ever meet with anything like a return of her fond affection? There was an aching void in her heart which nothing else could fill; must it always be thus? was her craving for affection never to be satisfied? "O, papa! my own papa, will you never love me?" mourned the sad little heart. "Ah! if I could only be good always, perhaps he would; but I am so often naughty;—whenever he begins to be kind I am sure to do something to vex him, and then it is all over. Oh! I wish I could be good! I will try very, very hard. Ah! if I might climb on his knee now, and lay my head on his breast, and put my arms round his neck, and tell him how sorry I am that I have been naughty, and made him lose his bird; and how much—oh! how much I love him! But I know I never could tell him that—I don't know how to express it; no words could, I am sure. And if he would forgive me, and kiss me, and call me his dear little daughter. Oh! will he ever call me that? Or if I, might only stand beside him and lay my head on his shoulder, and he would put his arm around me, it would make me so happy."
An exclamation from Enna caused Elsie to turn her head, and suddenly springing to her feet, she exclaimed in an eager, excited way, "Papa, there is a carriage coming up the avenue—it must be visitors; please, please, papa, let me go to my room."
"Why?" he asked coolly, looking up from his book, "why do you wish to go?"
"Because I don't want to see them, papa," she said, hanging her head and blushing deeply; "I don't want them to see me."