"You have never loved our daughter as you should. Therefore, I have felt it my duty to love and cherish her the more!" she sobbed.
He took her tenderly in his arms, and kissed the beautiful, quivering lips, exclaiming:
"Oh, my love, if our daughter were more like you, I could love her a hundredfold better! But, alas, she is so different, both in beauty and disposition, from my angel wife!"
"I have fancied she must be like your own relations, Edmund."
"Perhaps so," he replied evasively, continuing:
"This girl who took the prize this evening won my admiration, darling, because she has a wonderful likeness to you in your young days, Elinor; when we were first married."
"Oh, Edmund, I was never so exquisitely beautiful!" she cried, blushing like a girl.
"Oh, yes, indeed; quite as beautiful as Liane Lester—and very lovely still," he answered, gazing into her eyes with the admiration of a lover, giving her all the tenderness he withheld from Roma, his unloved daughter.
She nestled close to his breast, delighted at his praises, and presently she said: