The governess
notion will keep till I am dead. You can always be of some use to me as a
companion, if you choose."
This was quite a concession. Clarissa came over to her father's chair, and
laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder.
"My dear father," she said in a low sweet voice, "you make me almost happy,
in spite of our troubles. I wish for nothing better than to stay with you
always. And by-and-by, if we have to live abroad, where you need not be so
particular about our name, I may be able to help you a little--by means of
art or music--without leaving home. I think I could be happy anywhere with
you, papa, if you would only love me a little."
That appeal touched a heart not easily moved. Marmaduke Lovel put
his hand--such a slender feminine hand--into his daughter's with an
affectionate pressure.
"Poor child!" he said sadly. "It would be hard if I couldn't love you a
little. But you were born under an evil star, Clarissa; and hitherto
perhaps I have tried to shut my heart against you. I won't do that any
more. Whatever affection is in me to give shall be yours. God knows I have
no reason to withhold it, nor any other creature on this earth on whom to
bestow it. God knows it is a new thing for me to have my love sued for."
There was a melancholy in his tone which touched his daughter deeply.
He seemed to have struck the key-note of his life in those few words; a
disappointed unsuccessful life; a youth in which there had been some hidden
cause for the ungenial temper of his middle age.
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