It was not long before she felt almost as much at home at Locust as she did at the cottage.
The neighbours began to comment on it after awhile.

"He will surely make up with Elizabeth at this rate," they said.

But at the end of the summer the father and daughter had not even had a passing glimpse of each other.

One day, late in September, as the Little Colonel clattered up and down the hall with her grandfather's spur buckled on her tiny foot, she called back over her shoulder: "Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow." The Colonel paid no attention.
"I say," she repeated, "Papa Jack's comin' home to-morrow." "Well," was the gruff response.

"Why couldn't he stay where he was?
I suppose you won't want to come here any more after he gets back." "No, I 'pose not," she answered, so carelessly that he was conscious of a very jealous feeling.
"Chilluns always like to stay with their fathahs when they's nice as my Papa Jack is." The old man growled something behind his newspaper that she did not hear.