Adèle, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness.
"Is she living, papa?" And she gives him an appealing look that must be answered.
And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that innocent, confiding expression of hers.
"May-be, may-be, my darling; she was living not long since; yet it can never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adèle?" And he kisses her tenderly.
And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so, says,—
"I will, I do, papa."
"There, there, darling!"—as he folds her to him; "no more tears,—no more tears, chérie!"
But even while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with the daughter,—he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate outbreak.
Meantime Adèle is not without her little mementos of the life at Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good girl Rose,—her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little traveller to what towns she should direct these tender missives; and Adèle is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she has her own little pen in a certain travelling-escritoire the good papa has given her; and she plies her white fingers with it often and often of an evening, after the day's sight-seeing is over, to tell Rose, in return, what a charming journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and what a world of strange things she is seeing; and there are descriptions of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and of mountains, on those close-written sheets of hers, which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to be equal to many descriptions in print. We dare say they were better than a great many such.
Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum stories to tell in return for these; but she ekes out her letters pretty well, after all, and what they lack in novelty is made up in affection.