sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs
with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his
knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them
some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and then
Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in their
joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.

The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away,
and made his tea for him--happy little house-keeper she was then!--and
sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the room,
until the candles came. He made her his companion, though she was some
years younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly
demure, with her little book or work-box, as a woman. When they had
candles, Florence from her own dark room was not afraid to look again.
But when the time came for the child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go
to bed, Florence would sob and tremble as she raised her face to him,
and could look no more.

Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long
ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that
house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret
which she kept within her own young breast.

And did that breast of Florence--Florence, so ingenuous and true--so
worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last
faint words--whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her
face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice--did that young
breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more.

When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless
feet descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against
it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press
her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone
floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath; and in
her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some affection, to be a
consolation to him, to win him over to the endurance of some tenderness
from her, his solitary child, she would have knelt down at his feet, if
she had dared, in humble supplication.

No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he
shut up within. He went out