g. 'Ah! very near his heart! However, you
have been a good, good boy, and you are the best of all the dearest boys
that ever were, this morning, and here's the chain I have made of
it, Pa, and you must let me put it round your neck with my own loving
hands.'

As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said (after
having stopped to dry her eyes on his white waistcoat, the discovery of
which incongruous circumstance made her laugh): 'Now, darling Pa,
give me your hands that I may fold them together, and do you say after
me:--My little Bella.'

'My little Bella,' repeated Pa.

'I am very fond of you.'

'I am very fond of you, my darling,' said Pa.

'You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren't do it in
your responses at Church, and you mustn't do it in your responses out of
Church.'

'I withdraw the darling,' said Pa.

'That's a pious boy! Now again:--You were always--'

'You were always,' repeated Pa.

'A vexatious--'

'No you weren't,' said Pa.

'A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless,
troublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do better in the time to come,
and I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that it was
Pa's turn to make the responses, and clung to his neck. 'Dear Pa, if you
knew how much I think this morning of what you told me once, about the
first time of our seeing old Mr Harmon, when I stamped and screamed
and beat you with my detestable little bonnet! I feel as if I had been
stamping and screaming and beating you with my hateful little bonnet,
ever since I was born, darling!'

'Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always been nice
bonnets, for they have always become you--or you have become them;
perhaps it was that--at every age.'

'Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?' asked Bella, laughing
(notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic pleasure in the
picture, 'when I beat you with my bonnet?'

'No, my child. Wouldn't have hurt a fly!'

'Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I had
meant to hurt you,' said Bella. 'Did I pinch your legs, Pa?'

'Not much, my dear; but I think it's almost time I--'

'Oh, yes!' cried Bella. 'If I go on chattering, you'll be taken alive.
Fly, Pa, fly!'

So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella with
her light hand softly removed the fastenings of the house door, and Pa,
having received a parting hug, made off. When he