"I need not go back to the cry-baby, then, need I?" I said.

"No," replied my father; "you need not, Heather. You are to stay with me."

"Well, let's laugh and be very jolly," I said. "Let me be a robber, pretending to pick your pockets, and you must lie back and shut your eyes and pretend to be sound, sound asleep. You must not even start when I pull your diamond ring off your finger. But, I say—oh, Daddy!—where is your diamond ring?"

"Upstairs, or downstairs, or in my lady's chamber," replied Daddy. "Don't you bother about it, Heather. No, I don't want to play at being burgled to-night. Sit close to me; lay your little head on my breast."

I did so. I could feel his great heart beating. It beat in big throbs, now up, now down, now up, now down again.

Dinner was brought in, and I forgot all about the ring in the delight of watching the preparations, and of seeing the grand, tall waiter laying the table for two. He placed a chair at one end of the table for father, and at the other end for me. This I did not like, and I said so. Then father requested that the seats should be changed and that I should sit, so to speak, in his pocket. I forget, in all the years that have rolled by, what we had for dinner, but I know that some of it I liked and some I could not bear, and I also remember that it was the dishes I could not bear that father loved. He ate a good deal, and then he took me in his arms and settled me on his knee, sitting so that I should face him, and then he spoke.

"Heather, how old are you?"

I was accustomed to this sort of catechism, and answered at once, very gravely:

"Eight, Daddy."

"Oh, you are more than eight," he replied, "you are eight and a half, aren't you?"

"Eight years, five months, one week, and five days," I said.

"Come, that is better," he said, his blue eyes twinkling. "Always be accurate when you speak. Always remember, please, Heather, that it was want of accuracy ruined me."

"What is ruined?" I asked. "What in the world do you mean?"

"What I say. Now don't repeat my words. You will be able to think of them by and by."

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