"Come to the fire and take this big chair. I will sit on the footstool
at your knee. There, now! You can rest and be happy. Isn't it sweet to
be alone--just you and I--together like this! I love you so dearly, dear
uncle Philip. It seems as if I had never before really known just how
much I do love you. It seems as if my heart couldn't hold quite all the
happiness that fills it to-night. And the tenderness filling it to the
brim brings a new feeling of your goodness to me."
She had taken the low seat by his side, and now laid her head down on
his knee. He stroked her hair with an unsteady hand; sorely troubled and
not knowing what to say. He suddenly looked very old, and felt more
helpless than ever before in his life. Looking down on this beautiful
head he realized in every sensitive fibre of his soul and body that this
lovely young creature, clinging to his knee, was the one thing in the
whole world that he had ever loved--deeply, truly, purely, and
unselfishly; that her gentle heart was the only heart out of all the
hearts beating on the earth that had ever loved him as the innocent love
the good.
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