He took her hand, led her to a chair, sat down and drew her to his side.
“I have come to hear what you have to say as to your opinion of your own conduct to-day, and any confession your conscience may impel you to make to your father.”
“Papa,” she burst out, hiding her face in her hands while the hot blood surged over it and her neck, “I’m ever and ever so sorry and ashamed of—of the—of what I said to Mamma Vi, and about you! O papa, please, please forgive me! please believe that I do really love and honor and reverence you!”
He waited a moment to see if she had finished, then asked gravely, and with some severity of tone, “Is that all you have to say to me? Have you no confession of other wrong-doing to make?”
“Yes, sir,” she faltered, her head drooping still lower, “I—I disobeyed you before that by going outside the grounds.”
“Yes,” he said, “and it so happened that I saw you, having had occasion just at that time to pay a visit to the observatory at the top of the house.”
She looked up in surprise, but seeing the expression of grief and pain in his eyes, dropped her head again, and hiding her face on his shoulder, sobbed out, “O papa, don’t look so hurt and sorry! I will try to be a better girl! indeed I will!”
“You have wounded your father’s heart very sorely, little daughter,” he said with emotion. “How can I be other than hurt and sorry on learning that my dear child loves me so little that she is ready to speak disrespectfully of me and to disobey me repeatedly when she thinks I shall not know it?”
Her tears fell faster and faster at his words, and her sobs grew more violent.
“O papa, I do love you!” she cried, twining her arms round his neck. “Oh, please believe me! I’d rather be killed than not to have you believe that I do!”