"How handsome my papa is!" thought the little girl, gazing with
affectionate admiration into his face. And then she sighed, and
tears trembled in her eyes again. She admired her father, and loved
him, "oh! _so_ dearly," as she often whispered to herself; but
would she ever meet with anything like a return of her fond affection?
There was an aching void in her heart which nothing else could fill;
must it always be thus? was her craving for affection never to be
satisfied? "O, papa! my own papa, will you never love me?" mourned
the sad little heart. "Ah! if I could only be good always, perhaps
he would; but I am so often naughty; --whenever he begins to be kind
I am sure to do something to vex him, and then it is all over. Oh! I
_wish_ I _could_ be good! I will try very, _very_ hard.
Ah! if I might climb on his knee now, and lay my head on his breast,
and put my arms round his neck, and tell him how sorry I am that I
have been naughty, and made him lose his bird; and how much--oh!
_how_ much I love him! But I know I never could tell him _that_
--I don't know how to express it; no _words could_, I am sure.
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