Slight as was the praise, she kissed his hand passionately for it; and
it was some seconds ere he could proceed.

"Yes, I 'm sure you 'll do all you can; but what is it after all? Won't
I miss the songs she sings for me; won't I miss her laughing voice and
her sprightly step?"

"And why should you encounter such privations, papa?" broke Nelly in.
"These are, as you justly say, the greatest sources of your happiness.
Why separate from them? Why rob this humble chamber of its fairest
ornament? Why darken our hearth by an absence for which nothing can
requite us?"

"I 'll tell you why, then," said he, and a sparkling gleam of cunning
lit up his eye, as the casuistry crossed his mind. "Just because I
can deny myself anything for my children's sake. 'T is for them I am
thinking always. Give old Peter Dalton his due, and nobody can call him
selfish, not the worst enemy he had! Let me feel that my children are
benefited, and you may leave me to trudge along the weary path before
me."

"Then there only remains to see if this promise of benefit be real,"
said Nelly.

"And why wouldn't it? Doesn't everybody know that travelling and seeing
foreign parts is equal to any education? How many things haven't I seen
myself since I came abroad, that I never dreamed about before I left
home! Look at the way they dress the peas with sugar in them. See how
they shoe a horse with a leg tied up to a post, as if they were going
to cut it off. Mind the droll fashion they have of fastening a piece of
timber to the hind wheel of a coach, by way of a drag! There 's no end
to their contrivances."

"Let us forget every consideration but one," said Nelly, earnestly.
"What are the dangers that may beset Kate, in a career of such
difficulty, when, without an adviser, miles away from us all, she may
need counsel or comfort. Think of her in sickness or in sorrow, or,
worse than both, under temptation. Picture to yourself how dearly bought
would be every charm of that refinement you covet for her, at the price
of a heart weakened in its attachment to home, bereft of the simple
faith that there was no disgrace in poverty. Think, above all," cried
she and for the first time her lips trembled, and her eyes swam "think,
above all, we cannot give her up forever; and yet how is she to come
back again to these humble fortunes, and the daily toil that she will
then regard with shame and disgust? I ask not how differently shall we
appear in her eyes, for I