ay again, and I hate him. Why don't you make him
go, papa?"

At this remark, which was so flattering to Guy, the General made a
fresh effort to appease his daughter, but with no better success than
before. Children and fools, says the proverb, speak the truth; and
the truth which was spoken in this instance was not very agreeable to
the visitor at whom it was flung. But Guy looked on with a smile, and
nothing in his face gave any sign of the feelings that he might have.
He certainly had not been prepared for any approach to any thing of
this sort. On the journey the General had alluded so often to that
daughter, who was always uppermost in his mind, that Guy had expected
an outburst of rapturous affection from her. Had he been passed by
unnoticed, he would have thought nothing of it; but the malignancy of
her look, and the venom of her words, startled him, yet he was too
good-hearted and considerate to exhibit any feeling whatever.

Sarah's effort to take Zillah away had resulted in such a complete
failure that she retired discomfited, and there was rather an awkward
period, in which the General made a faint effort to induce his
daughter to say something civil to Guy. This, however, was another
failure, and in a sort of mild despair he resigned himself to her
wayward humor.

At last dinner was announced. Zillah still refused to leave her
father, so that he was obliged, greatly to his own discomfort, to
keep her on his knee during the meal. When the soup and fish were
going on she was comparatively quiet; but at the first symptoms of
entrees she became restive, and popping up her quaint little head to
a level with the table, she eyed the edibles with the air of an
habitue at the Lord Mayor's banquet. Kaviole was handed round. This
brought matters to a crisis.

"A plate and a fork for me, Thomas," she ordered, imperiously.

"But, my darling," remonstrated her father, "this is much too rich
for you so late at night."

"I like kaviole," was her simple reply, given with the air of one who
is presenting an unanswerable argument, and so indeed it proved to
be.

This latter scene was re-enacted, with but small variations,
whenever any thing appeared which met with her ladyship's approval;
and Guy found that in spite of her youth she was a decided
connoisseur in the delicacies of the table. Now, to tell the truth,
he was not at all fond of children; but this one excited in him a
positive horror. There seemed to be some