Page:An Old Fashioned Girl.djvu/73

Rh went with him through the wintry park. Coming home late, he liked to see a curly, brown head watching at the window; to find his slippers ready, his paper in its place, and a pair of willing feet, eager to wait upon him. "I wish my Fanny was more like her," he often said to himself, as he watched the girls, while they thought him deep in politics or the state of the money market. Poor Mr. Shaw had been so busy getting rich, that he had not found time to teach his children to love him; he was more at leisure now, and as his boy and girls grew up, he missed something. Polly was unconsciously showing him what it was, and making child-love so sweet, that he felt he could not do without it any more, yet didn't quite know how to win the confidence of the children, who had always found him busy, indifferent, and absent-minded.

As the girls were going to bed one night, Polly kissed grandma, as usual, and Fanny laughed at her, saying, "What a baby you are! We are too old for such things now."

"I don't think people ever are too old to kiss their fathers and mothers," was the quick answer.

"Right, my little Polly;" and Mr. Shaw stretched out his hand to her with such a kindly look, that Fanny stared surprised, and then said, shyly, "I thought you didn't care about it, father."

"I do, my dear." And Mr. Shaw put out the other hand to Fanny, who gave him a daughterly kiss, quite forgetting everything but the tender feeling that sprung up in her heart at the renewal of the childish custom which we never need outgrow.