me--laugh. All the
same," she affirmed definitely, "good old John Ellbertson will have to
have his beard cut." Quizzically for an instant she stared off into
space, then quite abruptly she gave a quick, funny little sniff.
"Anyway, I'll have a garden, won't I?" she said. "And always, of
course, there will be--Henrietta."

"Henrietta?" frowned her father.

"My daughter!" explained little Eve Edgarton with dignity.

"Your daughter?" snapped Edgarton.

"Oh, of course there may be several," conceded little Eve Edgarton.
"But Henrietta, I'm almost positive, will be the best one!"

So jerkily she thrust her slender throat forward with the speech, her
whole facial expression seemed suddenly to have undercut and stunned
her father's.

"Always, Father," she attested grimly, "with your horrid old books and
specimens you have crowded my dolls out of my steamer trunk. But never
once--" her tightening lips hastened to assure him, "have you ever
succeeded in crowding--Henrietta--and the others out of my mind!"

Quite incongruously, then, with a soft little hand in which there
lurked no animosity whatsoever, she reached up suddenly and smoothed
the astonishment out of her father's mouth-lines.

"After all, Father," she asked, "now that we're really talking so
intimately, after all--there isn't so specially much to life anyway,
is there, except just the satisfaction of making the complete round of
human experience--once for yourself--and then once again--to show
another person? Just that double chance, Father, of getting two
original glimpses at happiness? One through your own eyes, and
one--just a little bit dimmer--through the eyes of another?"

With mercilessly appraising vision the starving Youth that was in her
glared up at the satiate Age in him.

"You've had your complete round of human experience, Father!" she
cried. "Your first--full--untrammeled glimpse of all your Heart's
Desires. More of a glimpse, perhaps, than most people get. From your
tiniest boyhood, Father, everything just as you wanted it! Just the
tutors you chose in just the subjects you chose! Everything then that
American colleges could give you! Everything later that European
universities could offer you! And then Travel! And more Travel! And
more! And more! And then--Love! And then Fame! 'Love, Fame, and Far
Lands!' Yes, that's it exactly! Everything just as you chose it! So
your only tragedy, Father, lies--as far as I can see--in just
little--me!