urs, and love your friends."

"For instance, Adele, there is my book-keeper, a lean Savoyard, who
wears a red wig and spectacles,--and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with
a golden crucifix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in
order,--and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly moustache and
iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want to kiss the pet of his dear
friend,--and Jeannette, who washes the dishes for us, and wears great
wooden sabots"----

"Nonsense, papa! I am sure you have other friends; and then there's the
good godmother."

"Ah, yes,--she indeed," said Maverick; "what a precious hug she would
give you, Adele!"

"And then--and then--should I see mamma?"

The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maverick on the instant; and
then, in a slow, measured tone,--

"Impossible, Adele,--impossible! Come here, darling!" and as he fondled
her in a wild, passionate way, "I will love you for both, Adele; she was
not worthy of you, child."

Adele, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness.

"Is she living, papa?" And she gives him an appealing look that must be
answered.

And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that innocent, confiding
expression of hers.

"May-be, may-be, my darling; she was living not long since; yet it can
never matter to you or me more. You will trust me in this, Adele?" And
he kisses her tenderly.

And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears as she does so,
says,--

"I will, I do, papa."

"There, there, darling!"--as he folds her to him; "no more tears,--no
more tears, _cherie_!"

But even while he says it, he is nervously searching his pockets, since
there is a little dew that must be wiped from his own eyes. Maverick's
emotion, however, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy with
the daughter,--he having no understanding of that unsatisfied yearning
in her heart of which this sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate
outbreak.

Meantime Adele is not without her little mementos of the life at
Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick double letters from that good
girl Rose,--her dear, dear friend, who has been advised by the little
traveller to what towns she should direct these tender missives; and
Adele is no sooner arrived at these postal stations than she sends for
the budget which she knows must be waiting for her. And of course she
has her own little pen in a certain travelling-escritoire the good papa
has given her; and she plies her whi