and her father, kneeling and tearless, was far less
an object of surprise or interest to her than her
mother, lying still and white, and not turning her
head to smile at her darling.

"Mamma, mamma!" cried the child, in shapeless
terror. But the mother never stirred; and
the father hid his face yet deeper in the
bedclothes, to stifle a cry as if a sharp knife had
pierced his heart. The child forced her impetuous
way from her attendants, and rushed to
the bed. Undeterred by deadly cold or stony
immobility, she kissed the lips, and stroked the
glossy raven hair, murmuring sweet words of
wild love, such as had passed between the mother
and child often and often when no witnesses
were by; and altogether seemed so nearly beside
herself in an agony of love and terror, that
Edward arose, and softly taking her in his arms,
bore her away, lying back like one dead, so
exhausted was she by the terrible emotion they
had forced on her childish heart, into his study,
a little room opening out of the grand library,
into which on happy evenings, never to come
again, he and his wife were wont to retire to
have coffee together, and perhaps to stroll out
of the glass-door into the open air, the shrubbery,
the fields never— more to be trodden by
those dear feet. What passed between father
and child in this seclusion none could tell. Late
in the evening Ellinor's supper was sent for, and
the servant who brought it in, saw the child,
lying as one dead in her father's arms, and before
he left the room, watched his master feeding her,
the girl of six years of age, with as tender care as
if she had been a baby of six months.

CHAPTER III.

From that time the tie between father and
daughter grew very strong and tender indeed.
Ellinor, it is true, divided her affection between
her baby sister and her papa; but he, caring
little for babies, had only a theoretic regard for
his younger child, while the elder absorbed all
his love. Every day that he dined at home
Ellinor was placed opposite to him while he ate
his late dinner; she sat where her mother had
done during the meal, although she had dined
and even supped some time before on the more
primitive nursery fare. It was half pitiful, half
amusing to see the little girl's grave, thoughtful
ways and modes of speech, as if trying to act up
to the dignity of her place as her father's companion,
till sometimes the little head nodded off
to slumber in the middle of lisping some wise
little speech. "Old fashioned," the nurses called
her, and prophesied that she would not live long
in consequence of her old fashion. But instead
of the fulfilment of this prophecy, the fat bright
baby was seized with fits, and was well, ill, and
dead in a day! Ellinor's grief was something
alarming from its quietness and concealment.
She waited till she was left— as she thought—
alone at nights, and then sobbed and cried her
passionate cry for "Baby, baby, come back to
me— come back!" till every one feared for the
health of the frail little girl whose childish affections
had had to stand two such shocks. Her
father put aside all business, all pleasure of
every kind, to win his darling from her grief.
No mother could have done more, no tenderest
nurse done half so much as Mr. Wilkins then
did for Ellinor.

If it had not been for him she would have just
died of her grief. As it was, she overcame it—
but slowly, wearily— hardly letting herself love
any one for some time, as if she instinctively
feared lest all her strong attachments should find
a sudden end in death. Her love— thus dammed
up into a small space— at last burst its banks,
and overflowed on her father. It was a rich
reward for him for all his care of her, and he
took delight— perhaps a selfish delight— in all the
many pretty ways she perpetually found of
convincing him, if he had needed conviction, that
he was ever the first object with her. The nurse
told him that half an hour or so before the
earliest time at which he could be expected
home in the evenings Miss Ellinor began to fold
up her doll's things and lull the inanimate treasure
to sleep. Then she would sit and listen
with an intensity of attention for his footstep.
Once the nurse had expressed some wonder at
the distance at which Ellinor could hear her
father's approach, saying that she had listened
and could not hear a sound, to which Ellinor had
replied:                                                                                                                                               "Of course you cannot; he is not your
papa!"

Then, when he went away in the morning,
after he had kissed her, Ellinor would run to a
certain window from which she could watch him
up the lane, now hidden behind a hedge, now
reappearing through an open space, again out of
sight, till he reached a great old beech-tree,
where for an instant more she saw him. And
then she would turn away with a sigh, sometimes
reassuring her unspoken fears by saying
softly to herself,
"He will come again to-night."

Mr. Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent
on him for all her pleasures. He was even a
little jealous of any one who devised a treat or
conferred a present, the first news of which did
not come from or through him.

At last it was necessary that Ellinor should
have some more instruction than her good old
nurse could give. Her father did not care to take
upon himself the office of teacher, which he
thought he foresaw would necessitate occasional
blame, an occasional exercise of authority, which
might possibly render him less idolised by his
little girl; so he commissioned Lady Holster to
choose out one among her many protégées for a
governess to his daughter. Now, Lady Holster,
who kept a sort of amateur county register-office,
was only too glad to be made of use in
this way; but when she inquired a little further
as to the sort of person required, all she could
extract from Mr. Wilkins was:

  "You know the kind of education a lady should