"Yes, I think I do," he said. "I certainly remember the day, the first Christmas after my return from Europe, the first on which I heard myself addressed as papa--the sweetest of child voices calling me that, and wishing me a merry Christmas, as the dearest, loveliest of little girls ran into my arms. Dear daughter, what a priceless treasure you have been to me ever since!" he added, bending over her and softly smoothing her hair. "It has always been a joy to call you mine." She caught his hand in hers and pressed it to her lips. "Yes, dear, dear father! and to me to be so called. We loved one another very dearly then, each was all the other had, and I think our mutual love has never been less because of the other many tender ties God has given us since." "I am sure you are right, daughter, but at that time," he added with a smile, "you were not willing to share your father's love with another; at least with one other whom you suspected of trying to win it. Do you remember how you slipped away to your bed without bidding your papa good-night, and cried yourself to sleep?" "Yes, foolish child that I was!" she said, with a low musical laugh; "and how you surprised me the next morning by your knowledge of my fears, and then set them all at rest, like the dear, kind father that you were and always have been." "No, not always," he sighed. "Yes, papa, always," she said with playful tenderness. "I will insist upon that; because even when most severe with me, you did what at the time you deemed your duty, and believed to be for my good." "Yes, that is true, my dear, forgiving child! and yet I can never think of the suffering you endured during the summer that succeeded the Christmas we have been talking of, without keen remorse." "Yet, long before the next Christmas came I was happier than ever," she said, looking up into his face with a smile full of filial love. "It was the first in our own dear home at the Oaks, you remember, papa. You gave me a lovely set of pearls--necklace and bracelets--and this," taking up a pearl ring, "was Edward's gift. Mr. Travilla he was to me then, and no thought of one day becoming his wife even so much as entered my head. But years afterward he told me he had it in his mind even then; had already resolved to wait till I grew up and win me for his wife if he could." "Yes, he told me after you were grown and he had offered himself, that it had been love at first sight with him, little child that you were when he first made your acquaintance. That surprised me, though less than the discovery that you fancied one so many years your senior." "But so good, so noble, so lovable!" she said. "Surely, it was not half so strange, papa, as that he should fancy a foolish young thing such as I was then; not meaning that I am yet very greatly improved," she added, with a half tearful smile.