understand what I
want."

Caspar nodded. "That is one reason why I spoke to you just now," he
said, much more gently than usual. "I knew that she was a little brusque
sometimes; and I suppose I am not much better. As a rule a father does
not talk to his girls as I have been talking to you, I fancy. I am
almost as ignorant of a father's duties to his daughter as you say you
are of the habits of English bourgeois society--for I suppose that is
what you mean?"

He smiled a little--the slight smile of a satire which Lesley always
dreaded; and yet, she remembered, his voice had been very kind. It
softened again into its gentlest and most musical tones, as he said--

"You must take us as you find us, child: we shall not do you much harm,
and it will not be for long."

Lesley was emboldened by the gentle intonation to draw closer to him,
and to lay an entreating hand upon his arm.

"Oh, father," she said, "if you would but let me write to mamma!"

And then she uttered a little sob, and the tears filled her eyes and ran
down her cheeks. As for Caspar Brooke, he stood like a man amazed, and
repeated her words almost stupidly.

"_Write to mamma?_" he said.

"It would do me good: it would not do any harm," said Lesley, hurriedly,
brokenly, and clasping his arm with both hands to enforce her plea. "I
would not tell her anything that you did not like: I should never say
anything but good about you; but, oh, there are so many things that
puzzle me, and that I should like to consult her about. You see,
although I was not much with her, I used to write to her twice a week,
and she wrote to me oftener, sometimes; and I told her everything, and
she used to advise me and help me! And I miss it so much--it is that
that makes me unhappy; it seems so hard never to write and never to hear
from her! I feel sometimes as if I could not bear it; as if I should
have to run away to her again and tell her everything! Nobody is like
her--nobody--and to be a year without her is terrible!"

And Lesley put her head down on her father's arm and cried
unrestrainedly, with a sort of newborn instinct that he sympathised with
her, and would not repulse her confidence.

As for Caspar Brooke, his face had turned quite pale: he stood like a
statue, with features rigidly set, listening to Lesley's outburst of
pleading words. It took him a little time to find his voice, even when
he had at last assimilated the ideas contained in her speech and
regai