“What other way?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, hiding her face on his shoulder.
“Shall I lock you up for a week on bread and water?”
“Oh, no, no! that would be worse; everybody would know I had been very naughty. But I—I believe I’d almost rather you—would whip me; for nobody need know about it, and it would be all over in a few minutes.”
“I shall not do that,” he said, very decidedly, and in a moved tone, pressing her closer to his breast and touching his lips to her cheek; “how could I? You must bear the punishment I have decreed, but you shall have no other; and I hope it will not be long before I can trust you as fully as ever.”
“Papa, can’t you do it now?” she asked imploringly; “won’t you remove your prohibition?”
“No, not now; not for days or weeks.”
Then she wept very bitterly.
“My little daughter,” he said, tenderly wiping away her tears, and smoothing the hair back from her heated brow, “I am very, very sorry for you; but do you feel so sure of your strength to resist the temptation before which you fell yesterday, that you wish me to expose you to it again?”
“No, papa, oh, no!” she said, with a look of new comprehension in the eyes she lifted to his; “but is that why you refuse?”