elon will be like
when she grows into a great girl? I should have liked to have
seen you, my little one. I wonder if you will be tall--I dare
say you will--for your mother was tall, and your face is very
like hers."

"Am I like her, papa?"

"Very," he said, stroking her wavy hair, with his feeble
fingers; "your eyes--yes, you have eyes that resemble hers
exactly, and sometimes I have thought that when you grew up it
would be almost like seeing her over again--for you know I did
love her," he added, in a lower tone, turning his head
restlessly on the pillow, "though they said I did not. I never
meant her to die alone; they might have known that. I wish--
Bah! I am forgetting----"

"What did you say, papa?"

"Nothing," he answered; "I think I was forgetting where I was.
How dark it is growing! you must light the candles soon. I
must look at you again; you know I want to see your eyes, and
smile, and pretty hair once more. And you, my little one, you
will not forget my face? Don't cry, don't cry," he said, with
a sudden pain in his voice; "I cannot bear it. I have never
made you cry before: have I, my child?"

"Never, never," she said, stifling her tears desperately.

"You must think of me sometimes when you are grown up," he
went on in his feeble voice, harping still on the same
subject. "You will have no money, my poor little one--if it had
not been for that devil Legros--but it is too late to think of
that now. Well, I think you will have beauty, and that will go
far even if you have no _dot_, and I should like you to marry
well. But when you have a husband, and are rich, perhaps, you
must still think sometimes of the days when you were a little
girl, and had a papa who loved no one in the world so much as
his little Madelon."

"Papa, I want no money, nor husband, nor anything else," cried
Madelon, in a burst of tears, and throwing both her arms round
his neck. "I want nobody but you, and I love you, and always
shall love you better than any one else in the world. Papa,
are you going to die and leave me?"

"So it seems," he said bitterly. "It is not my choice,
Madelon, but one cannot arrange these little matters for
oneself, you see. Now listen, my child; I am not going to
leave you quite alone. I have a sister, who is your aunt
Therese; I have never spoken to you about her before, for she
became a nun, and we have not always been very good friends,
but I think she will give you a home. She is the Superio