Are you pining after your convent, I ask you, Salome ?" "Indeed, _no_, papa!" "What!" demanded her father, starting up at her reply and gazing with doubt into her pale, earnest face.
"I am not thinking of the convent, dear papa.

Indeed I had forgotten all about it.

If it will give you any pleasure to hear it, dear papa, let me tell you that I have quite given up all ideas of entering a convent," added Salome, with a pensive smile.
"What!" exclaimed the banker, starting up in a sitting position and bending toward his daughter as if in doubt whether to gaze her through and through or to catch her to his heart.
She met that look and understood her father's love for his only child, and reproached herself for having been so blind to it for these three years past.
"Dearest papa," she said, with tender earnestness, "I have no longer the slightest wish or intention of ever entering a convent.

And I wonder now how I ever could have been so insane as to think I could live all my life contentedly in a convent, or so selfish as to forget that by doing so I should leave my father alone in the world!" "My darling child! Is this truly so?
Are these really your thoughts ?" exclaimed the banker, with such a look of delight as Salome had not believed possible in so aged a face.
"Really and truly, my father! And does it give you so much pleasure ?" "Pleasure my daughter! It gives me the greatest joy! Hand me my dressing-gown, my dear.

I must get up.