"Yes," he answered, with a remorseful look, "but don't speak of it. How very ready I was to punish you for the most trifling fault."
"Indeed, papa," she answered earnestly, "it was no such trifle, for I had disobeyed a plain order not to ask a second time for permission to do what you had once forbidden."
"True; but I now see that a child so sensitive, conscientious and affectionate as you were, would have been sufficiently punished by a mild rebuke."
"A year or two later you discovered and acted upon that," she said, with an affectionate look up into his face. "But at this time you were a very young father; and when I remember how you took me on your knee, by the fire there, and warmed my hands and feet, petting and fondling me, and what a nice evening I had with you afterward, I could almost wish to go through it all again."
"Hark! what was that?" exclaimed Rosie.
Every one paused to listen.
There was a sound of sobbing as of a child in sore distress, and it seemed to come from the closet.
"There's somebody shut up there now," Walter said in a loud, excited whisper. "Grandpa, can't she be let out?"
Arthur strode hastily across the room and threw the closet door wide open.
There was no one there. They glanced at each other in surprise and perplexity.