When any sharp sense of its being empty smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD--it was the pouring out of her full heart--to let one angel love her and remember her.
It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so wide and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with his drooping head upon her arm.

And after that, and when it was quite dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played and sung, that it was more lIke the mournful recollection of what she had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated.
But it was repeated, often--very often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the sweet voice was hushed in tears.
Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers had been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long before she took to it again--with something of a human love for it, as if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window, near her mother's picture, in the unused room so long deserted, wore away the thoughtful hours.
Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the rosy children lived?
They were not immediately suggestive of her loss; for they were all girls: four little sisters.

But they were motherless like her--and had a father.
It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the drawing-room window, or on the balcony; and when he appeared, her expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed them on the sill, and called to him.

The elder child would come down to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee, or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to him: and though they were always gay together, he would often watch her face as if he thought her like her mother that was dead.

Florence would sometimes look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window.