"But what is it you do desire ?" "To be with you, papa.

Oh, if I could only go with you!" "And leave Max and Gracie ?" "I'll have to leave them, anyhow, if you take me away from here; and, though I love them very much, I love you a great deal better." "I'm afraid you would have a doleful time on shipboard, with no young companions, nobody to see or speak to but your father and the other officers." "I wouldn't care for that, or any thing, if I could only be with you.
Papa, you don't _know_ how I love you!" "Then, I'll take you with me when I leave here; and you need never live away from me any more, unless you choose." "Papa," she cried, lifting her head to look up into his face, with glad, astonished eyes, "do you really mean it?
_May_ I go with you ?" He held her close, with a joyous laugh.
"Why, I understood you to say, a moment since, that you didn't want to be in the care of a man,--_any_ man." "But you know I didn't mean you, papa." "But I am the gentleman I spoke of a little while ago, as the one in whose care I intended to put you." "Papa," she said, with a bewildered look, "I don't understand." Then he told her; and she was, as Max had foreseen, almost wild with delight.
"Oh!" she cried, "how nice, _nice_ it will be to have a home of our very own, and our father with us all the time! Papa, I think I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night, I'm so glad." "I trust it will not have that effect," he said, "I hesitated a little about telling you to-night, lest it might interfere with your rest; but you seemed so unhappy about your future prospects, that I felt I must relieve you of the fear of being sent away among strangers." "You are so very good and kind to me, papa," she returned gratefully.
"Where is our dear home to be ?" "I don't know, yet," he said.

"I have not had time to look about in search of house or land; but I hope to be able to buy or build a house somewhere in this region, as near Ion as a pleasant location can be found." "I hope you'll find a house ready built, papa," she said.

"I shouldn't know how to wait for one to be built." "Not if, by waiting, we should, in the end, have a much nicer, pleasanter one ?" She considered a moment.

"Couldn't we rent a house to live in while we get our own built ?" "I think that plan might answer quite well," he said with a smile.