"Then I shall grow very worldly, like her," said Miss Precocity.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because she is a worldly old woman—and you said so yourself."
"I said so! When?" demanded her father, with a guilty feeling of vague recollection.
"To Mamma once—when Mamma said something against her husband, you said that, and Mamma said you ought not to say that about her sister—and you said she was only her half-sister, anyhow, and not a bit like her—and now you want to send me back to her as if I were only your half-child."
The father smiled sadly enough as he drew the anxious little face close to his own.
"Oh! no—You are all mine, and my all. I only want to do what is right."
"Mamma wants me to stay with you—so it must be right."
The present tense used by the child struck the father to the heart.
"What makes you think that?" he asked with a sigh. The little girl was quick to catch at the new hope.