istance, where there was an easy chair,
covered his head with a handkerchief, and composed himself to sleep.

It was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her eyes
towards his chair from time to time; watching him with her thoughts,
when her face was intent upon her work; and sorrowfully glad to think
that he could sleep, while she was there, and that he was not made
restless by her strange and long-forbidden presence.

What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was steadily
regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by design,
was so adjusted that his sight was free, and that it never wandered
from her face face an instant That when she looked towards him' In the
obscure dark corner, her speaking eyes, more earnest and pathetic
in their voiceless speech than all the orators of all the world, and
impeaching him more nearly in their mute address, met his, and did not
know it! That when she bent her head again over her work, he drew
his breath more easily, but with the same attention looked upon her
still--upon her white brow and her falling hair, and busy hands; and
once attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes away!

And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he prolong
the attentive gaze covertly directed on his unknown daughter? Was there
reproach to him in the quiet figure and the mild eyes? Had he begun to
her disregarded claims and did they touch him home at last, and waken
him to some sense of his cruel injustice?

There are yielding moments in the lives of the sternest and harshest
men, though such men often keep their secret well. The sight of her in
her beauty, almost changed into a woman without his knowledge, may have
struck out some such moments even In his life of pride. Some passing
thought that he had had a happy home within his reach-had had a
household spirit bending at has feet--had overlooked it in his
stiffnecked sullen arrogance, and wandered away and lost himself, may
have engendered them. Some simple eloquence distinctly heard, though
only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them as 'By the
death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered, by our
meeting in this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from me in
the anguish of my heart, oh, father, turn to me and seek a refuge in my
love before it is too late!' may have arrested them. Meaner and lower
thoughts, as that his dead boy was now super