"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he said, smiling as she danced away.
The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly knew if her feet touched the ground.
"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she held in her hand.
"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said.
Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side with the flowers she had hastily plucked—scarlet geranium, heliotrope, sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers.
"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know."
"What does Nurse say?"
"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?"
"Would you like to know where you will go?"
"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you."