Then she kissed her father and said "good night." He held her by the hand and looked at her with a sort of vague anxiety.
"Art thou well, my child ?" he asked.

"This little hand burns like fire,--and thine eyes are too bright, surely, for sleep to visit them?
Art sure that nothing ails thee ?" "Sure, quite sure," answered the girl with a strange, dreamy smile.

"I am quite well,--and happy!" And she turned to enter the house.
"Stay!" called the father.

"Promise me thou wilt think no more of Lovisa!" "I had nearly forgotten her," she responded.

"Poor thing! She cursed me because she is so miserable, I suppose--all alone and unloved; it must be hard! Curses sometimes turn to blessings, father! Good night!" And she ascended the one flight of wooden stairs in the house to her own bedroom--a little three-cornered place as clean and white as the interior of a shell.