a result, she did not understand him, nor he her. She would miss
him as she would oxygen from the air. Now she began to perceive
that, although he was the unobtrusive source of her life, home,
education, and the advantages of her lot, he was not impersonal,
but a human being as truly as herself. Did he want more from her
than the common and instinctive affection of a child for its parent?
If to this she added intelligent love, appreciation, and sympathy,
would he care? If she should be able to say, "Papa, I am kin to you,
not merely in flesh and blood, but in mind, hope, and aspiration;
I share with you that which makes your life, with its success and
failure, not as the child who may find luxurious externals curtailed
or increased, but as a sympathetic woman who understands the more
vital changes in spiritual vicissitude,"--if she could truthfully
say all this, would he be pleased and reveal himself to her?

Thoughts like these passed through her mind as they dined together
and drove in the park. When at last they returned and sat in the
dimly-lighted parlor, Mr. Vosburgh recognized that her "mood" had
not passed away.






CHAPTER III.

A NEW FRIEND.