"Are you sure--?"
She answered the question before he could finish it.
"Sure I love him?" she said. "Oh, what words can say Yes for me, as I
want to say it? I love him--!" Her voice faltered softly; and her answer
ended in a sigh.
"You are very young. You and Frank, my love, are both very young."
She raised her head from his shoulder for the first time. The thought
and its expression flashed from her at the same moment.
"Are we much younger than you and mamma were?" she asked, smiling
through her tears.
She tried to lay her head back in its old position; but as she spoke
those words, her father caught her round the waist, forced her, before
she was aware of it, to look him in the face--and kissed her, with a
sudden outburst of tenderness which brought the tears thronging back
thickly into her eyes. "Not much younger, my child," he said, in low,
broken tones--"not much younger than your mother and I were." He put
her away from him, and rose from the seat, and turned his head aside
quickly. "Wait here, and compose yourself; I will go indoors and speak
to your mother." His voice trembled over those parting words; and he
left her without once looking round again.
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