She came and stood at his side, resting her arm lightly on his
shoulder.

"Papa," she said, "your words are a revelation to me. Your world
is indeed a new one, and a better one than mine. But I must cease
to be a girl, and become a woman, to enter it."

"You need not be less happy; you do not loset anything. A picture
is ever finer for shadows and depth of perspective. You can't get
anything very fine, in either art or life, from mere bright surface
glare."

"I can't go back to that any more; something in my very soul tells
me that I cannot; and your loneliness and danger would render even
the wish to do so base. No, I feel now that I would rather be
a woman, even though it involves a crown of thorns, than to be a
shallow creature that my own heart would despise. I may never be
either wise or deep, but I shall be to you all I can."

"You do very much for me in those words alone, my darling. As
I said before, no one can tell what you may become if you develop
your own nature naturally."






CHAPTER IV.