y own dear eldest daughter," he returned with a
gratified look, and giving her a slight caress.

"It would be strange indeed, if any one of your children did want to
get from under it, papa," said Grace, with a look of ardent affection
up into his eyes.

"I am glad to hear you say that, daughter," he returned with a smile,
and softly smoothing the shining, golden hair, "because it will be
years before I can feel willing to resign the care of my still rather
feeble little Grace to another, or let her take up the burdens and
anxieties of married life."

"You may be perfectly sure I don't want to, papa," she returned with a
gleeful, happy laugh. "It is just a joy and delight to me to feel that
I belong to you and always shall as long as you want to keep me."

"Which will be just as long as you enjoy it--and we both live," he
added a little more gravely.

Then releasing them with an injunction not to waste too much time over
their toilet, he passed on down the stairway while they went on into
their tiring-room.

"Oh, Lu," said Grace as she pulled down her hair before the glass,
"haven't we the best and dearest father in the world? I like Chester
ever so much, but I sometimes wonder how you can bear the very thought
of leaving papa for him."

"It does not seem an easy thing to do," sighed Lucilla, "and yet----"
But she paused, leaving her sentence unfinished.

"Yet what?" asked Grace, turning an inquiring look upon her sister.

"Well, I believe I'll tell you," returned Lucilla in a half-hesitating
way. "I have always valued father's love oh, so highly, and once when
I happened accidentally to overhear something he said to Mamma Vi, it
nearly broke my heart--for a while." Her voice quivered with the last
words, and she seemed unable to go on for emotion.

"Why, Lu, what could it have been?" exclaimed Grace in surprise, and
giving her sister a look of mingled love and compassion.

With an evident effort Lucilla went on: "It was that she was dearer to
him than all his children put together--that he would lose every one
of them rather than part with her. It made me feel for a while as if I
had lost everything worth having--papa's love for me must be so very
slight. But after a long and bitter cry over it I was comforted by
remembering what the Bible says, 'Let every one of you in particular
so love his wife even as himself.' And the words of Jesus, 'For this
cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave to h