Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/255

 but I see it's no use. I heard her twisting you around her fingers with that piano a while ago."

"Papa, don't be so silly!' criedsilly!" cried [sic] Sallie, slipping her arm around him, putting one hand over his mouth, and kissing him.

"Go on to your work. I'll entertain Mr. Gaston."

"Indeed you will!" he shouted, throwing her another kiss as he left.

"He's the dearest father any girl ever had in this world. I know you loved yours, didn't you, Mr. Gaston?"

"Mine was killed in battle, Miss Sallie. I never knew him. But I had the most beautiful mother that ever lived. I lost her when a mere boy. And the world has never been the same since. I envy you."

"I forgot. Forgive me," she softly said, looking up into his face with tenderness.

"If I had only had a sister! How my heart used to ache when I'd see other boys playing with a sister! My poor little starved soul was so hungry, I would go off in the woods sometimes and cry for hours."

"I wish I had known you when you were a little boy,—I can't conceive of a dignified orator swaying thousands running around as a barefooted boy. But you must have gone barefooted for I think Papa said so, didn't he?"

"Indeed I did, and sometimes I am afraid for the very good reason I didn't have any shoes."

"Well, you wouldn't have worn them if you had. I always wanted to be a boy just to go barefooted. I think girls lose so much of a child's life by having to wear shoes."

"But you never knew what it meant to want shoes and not be able to have them," he said, looking at the shining tips of her slippers peeping from the edge of her dress.