Then they would climb and clamber upstairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell them some story.

Or they would come running out into the balcony; and then Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in their joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.
The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone away, and made his tea for him--happy little house-keeper she was then!--and sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the room, until the candles came.

He made her his companion, though she was some years younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with her little book or work-box, as a woman.

When they had candles, Florence from her own dark room was not afraid to look again.
But when the time came for the child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob and tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that house.

But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret which she kept within her own young breast.
And did that breast of Florence--Florence, so ingenuous and true--so worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his last faint words--whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of her face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice--did that young breast hold any other secret?
Yes.