She came up to him and gave him a timid kiss, which the Colonel accepted quietly in the softening of that thought. She roamed about the table a little, flicking off an imperceptible speck of dust with her handkerchief, arranging some books upon the upper shelf of his bureau, sometimes looking at him over that row of books, sometimes lingering behind him as if doing something there. He did not interfere with her movements for a few minutes, in the _attendrissement_ of his thoughts. Without a mother to speak for her! Poor little girl, if that should ever be so! Poor little children unconscious in their nursery crying for mamma; and, oh, worse than all, himself without his Lucy, who had made all the world sweet to him! He was a masterfull man, who would stand to his arms in any circumstances, who would not give in even if his heart was broken; but what a strange, dull, gloomy world it would be to him if the children had no mother to speak for them! He made a sudden effort to shake off that thought, and the first thing that recalled him to himself was to hear Bee, having no other mischief, he supposed, to turn her hand to, heaping coals upon the little bit of fire which had been lighted for cheerfulness only.
“Bee,” he cried, “are you still there? What are you doing? The room is like an oven already, and you are making up a sort of Christmas fire.”
“Oh, I am so sorry--I forgot,” cried Bee, putting down the shovel hastily. “I thought it wanted mending--for you always like a good fire.”
“Not in September,” he said, “and such weather; the finest we have had since July. Come, cease this fluttering about--you disturb me--and I have a hundred things to do.”
“Yes, papa.” Bee’s little figure stole from behind him in the meekest way. She stopped in her progress towards the door to give a touch to the flowers on a side table; and then she went slowly on, going out. She had got her hand upon the handle of the door, and Colonel Kingsward thanked heaven he had got rid of her for the moment, when she turned round, eyeing him closely again though keeping by that means of escape. “Papa,” she said, softly, “after all the talk we have been having--you perhaps don’t remember that--you have never--answered my question yet.”