“I am sure,” said she, “though you have no feeling for me, pa, I am one of the most unfortunate girls that ever lived. You know how poor we are,” (it is probable he did, having some reason to know it!), “and what a glimpse of wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here in this ridiculous mourning⁠—which I hate!⁠—a kind of a widow who never was married. And yet you don’t feel for me.⁠—Yes you do, yes you do.”

This abrupt change was occasioned by her father’s face. She stopped to pull him down from his chair in an attitude highly favourable to strangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or two on the cheek.

“But you ought to feel for me, you know, pa.”

“My dear, I do.”