About this time Launa turned affectionately to her father. She found him sympathetic, for he understood her, and he never gasped.
“You remind me of your mother,” he said one day to her.
“Tell me about her,” she said, flushing with pleasure.
“She was very sweet—how can I tell you? I loved her; half of me, the best, the happy half died with her; it was as if I were killed. . . . And we were so happy.”
“It was terrible,” said Launa. “Life, father, seems sometimes to be horribly, terribly sad.” She said this with the air of one who has made a new discovery, and it amused her father.
“Why is it?” she asked.
“I do not know.”
“And what is the good?”
He did not answer.
It dawned upon the small world round “Solitude” that Launa was attractive, and so the inhabitants came to visit and to criticise. They all went to Quebec, and they stayed several nights at different houses, where she enjoyed herself, and where she was admired—especially at one of the balls she attended.