Lucia still wondered. She loved her mother, in the instinctive, not over-intelligent way of most young people, but really she could not see what there was about the estimable woman that should make her father long to see her every day of the year and search the house for her whenever he returned. She had never heard her father make romantic speeches, such as nice married people sometimes do in novels; and as for her mother, what did she ever talk of to her liege lord but family bills, the servants, the children’s faults, and her own ailments? Could it be, she asked herself, that this matter-of-fact couple said anything when alone that was unlike what the whole family heard from them daily at the table and in the sitting-room? “Why are you looking at me so queerly?” suddenly asked the father. Lucia recovered herself, and said,-- “I was only wondering whether you never got tired of looking for mother as soon as you came home.” “Certainly not,” said the merchant. “Most husbands do, sooner or later,” said Lucia. “Perhaps I will, some day,” the father replied; “and I can tell you when it will be.” “Tell,” said Lucia. “I think ’twill be about the day after eternity ends,” was the reply. “Not a day sooner. But what do you know about what some husbands do, you little simpleton? And what put the subject into your little head?” “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lucia, dropping upon the piano-stool and making some chords and discords. “It came into my mind; that’s all.” “Well, I hope that some day you’ll find out to your own satisfaction. By the way, I wish you’d get out of that morning gown. My new clerk is coming to dinner.” “Oh, dear! then I’ll have dinner sent up to my room, I think. I don’t feel a bit well, and it’s awful to think of sitting bolt upright in a tight dress for an hour or two.” And Lucia whirled from side to side on the piano-stool, and looked forlorn and cross. “I suppose it would be impossible to dine in a dress that is not tight?” said the father. “Papa, please don’t tease me: I don’t feel a bit well; really I don’t.” “What is the matter, child?” asked the father, tenderly. “Too much candy?--too few parties?” “Oh, nothing, that I know of,” said the girl, wearily. “I’ll feel better when real cold weather comes, I suppose.” She played with the piano-keys a moment or two, and continued,-- “So you have a new clerk? I hope he’s nice?--not a mere figuring-machine?” “Quite a fine fellow,” said the merchant. “At least, he seems to be.” “Is he--have you given him the place you intended to offer Philip Hayn?” “Yes.” “The iron business is real good for a young man to get into, isn’t it?” “Indeed it is, since iron has looked up.” “And that stupid fellow might have had the chance if he hadn’t gone off home again without even calling to say good-by?” “Just so.” “Oh, I don’t want to see him,” said Lucia, pettishly. “I’m tired of young men.”