"Yes, father knows;" and drawing her closer to him, John Benham stroked his daughter's sleek brown head with a soft caressing touch.
And father did know. He knew that the little daughter was having her first experience of the world, and the way it made its separations, its class distinctions between rich and poor and high and low. He was not envious or jealous or bitter, but he was very observant and thoughtful, and he could not help seeing how ignorantly made were some of these distinctions, and how unchristian. He knew that his little Hope was intelligent and refined,—the fit companion for any refined child, however placed in the world; and he knew that he himself was a fit companion for intelligent, thoughtful men, however placed,—for, though obliged to be a hard worker since he came a boy of fifteen from his father's farm, he had found time to think and read and study, and he was conscious that he had read and studied and thought to some purpose, and that his thought was worth something; yet because of this way that the world had of separating people without regard to their real natures or their real tastes, but solely in regard to the accidents of poverty or family influence, he was debarred from acquaintanceship on true, equal terms with many who would naturally have been his companions and friends, and whose companionship would have been of service to him, as his would have been of service to them, from the different knowledge that had come to each, from their different experiences. And here was Hope—he looked down at her as his thoughts came to this point—here was Hope, his cherished little daughter, so fine, so sweet. Was that girl of the world's so-called higher class, whose blunt speech had hurt so deeply,—was she a fit companion for his little daughter?
He bent down and put his lips to the sleek brown head, as he asked this question. Then he saw that the child was asleep; but his movement roused her, and, stirring uneasily, she murmured in her dreams, "Ten cents a bunch!" then, half awakening, cried, "Farver, farver, I don't ever want to see that girl again."
"No, no, you sha'n't. It's all over, dear. We're not going to have any more of that 'Ten cents a bunch!'—never any more of it," he repeated consolingly, but with an emphasis of indignation and self-reproach.
But he was mistaken. Neither he nor Hope had heard the last of that "Ten cents a bunch!"
CHAPTER VII.
To be a pupil in Miss Marr's school was a distinction in itself. "Why don't you give and write your name 'Mademoiselle Marr,' as you have a right to do?" asked one of Miss Marr's acquaintances, when the school was first started.
Miss Marr laughed; then she answered soberly, "When my father came to America, he made himself a legal citizen of the country and he fought in its battles. He never called himself, and he was never called by any one, 'Monsieur.'"
"Because he bore the title of General."