m getting along splendidly," she said, smiling up at the beautiful
face. "Perhaps--of course I can't tell for sure, but I'm not certain
but that he will like it after he gets used to it. You have to get
used to things. He liked the flowers, and when I rubbed my cheek
'gainst his, and when I kissed him. How I know he did is because he
smiled--I wish my father would smile all the time."

The Child did not leave the room when she had finished her report,
but fidgeted about the great silent place uncertainly. She turned
back by-and-by to the Lady.

"There's something I _wish_ you could tell me," she said, with her
wistful little face uplifted. "It's if you think it would be polite
to ask my father to put me to bed instead of Marie--just unbutton me,
you know, and pray me. I was going to ask my mother to-morrow night
if my father did to-night. I thought--I thought"--the Child hesitated
for adequate words--"it would be the lovingest way to love him, for
you feel a little intimater with persons when they put you to bed.
Sometimes I feel that way with Marie--a very little. I wish you could
nod your head if you thought it would be polite."

The Child's eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious.
And again the Lady seemed to nod.

"Oh, you're nodding, yes!--I b'lieve you're nodding yes! Thank you
ve-ry much--now I shall ask him to. Good-bye. Give my love to the
baby." And the little figure moved away sedately.

To ask him in the manner of a formal invitation with "yours very
truly" in it appeared to the Child upon thoughtful deliberation to be
the best way. She did not feel very intimate yet with her father, but
of course it might be different after he unbuttoned her and prayed
her.

Hence the formal invitation:

"Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl
to bed tonite at 1/2 past 7. Yores very truely

Elizabeth.

"R s v p.

P.s. the little girl is me."

It was all original except the "R s v p" and the fraction. The
Child had asked Marie how to write "half," and the other she had
found in the corner of one of her mother's formal invitations. She
did not know what the four letters meant, but they made the
invitation look nicer, and she could make lovely capital "R's."

At lunch-time the Child stole up-stairs and deposited her little
folded note on top of her father's manuscript. Her heart beat
strangely fast as she did it. She had still a lurking fear that it
might not be polit