his features he returned. "You must not criticise your mother in that
way, my dear. She is a very clever little woman, indeed."

Angelica nodded. "If she were clever, you would not say 'little.' Nobody
says that you are a very clever little man. When I'm big, I'll not be
called little, either. I love our dear Queen Bess, but I'm _all yours_.
Why were you so angry to-day?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you," replied her father, turning cold. "You
must not ask too many questions; but I am very grateful for your
sympathy. You are my dear little girl, and you make me love you more and
more, daily."

"And will you tell me whenever you are not feeling like what you are
making the rest believe?"

"If it will make you any happier, I will whisper it into your pink
little ear. But I think I should be a very bad father to make you
unhappy."

"I told you, sir, that I am more unhappy when I imagine things. It is
just like a knife," and again she pointed to her head.

Hamilton turned pale. "You are too young to have headaches," he said.
"Perhaps you have been studying too hard. I am so ambitious for my
children; but the boys have taken to books as they have to kites and
fisticuffs. I should have remembered that girls--" His memory gave up
the stories of his mother's precocity. But this child, who was so
startlingly like the dead woman, was far less fitted to carry such
burdens. So sensitive an intelligence in so frail a body might suddenly
flame too high and fall to ashes. He resolved to place her in classes of
other little girls at once, and to keep her in the fields as much as
possible. None knew better than he how close the highly strung
unresting brain could press to madness. He had acquired a superhuman
control over his. If this girl's brain had come out of his own, it must
be closely watched. She had not inherited his high light spirits, but
the melancholy which had lain at the foundations of his mother's nature;
she would require the most persistent guarding. He took her face between
his hands and kissed it many times.

"Very well," he said, "we will have our little secrets. I will tell you
when I am disturbed, and you will sit close beside me with your doll
until I feel better. But remember, I expect as much confidence in
return. You will never have a care nor a terror nor an annoyance that
you will not confide it to me directly."

She nodded. "I'm always telling you things to myself. And I won't cry
any more in the ni