CHAPTER III.

A year passed away, and the early Southern spring had again returned with flowers and fragrance.  After a day in music and embroidery, with sundry games at Battledoor and The Graces with her sister, Floracita heard the approaching footsteps of her father, and, as usual, bounded forth to meet him.  Any one who had not seen him since he parted from the son of his early New England friend would have observed that he looked older and more careworn; but his daughters, accustomed to see him daily, had not noticed the gradual change.

“You have kept us waiting a little, Papasito,” said Rosabella, turning round on the music-stool, and greeting him with a smile.

“Yes, my darling,” rejoined he, placing his hand fondly on her head.  “Getting ready to go to Europe makes a deal of work.”

“If we were sons, we could help you,” said Rosabella.

“I wish you were sons!” answered he, with serious emphasis and a deep sigh.

Floracita nestled close to him, and, looking up archly in his face, said, “And pray what would you do, papa, without your nightingale and your fairy, as you call us?”

“Sure enough, what should I do, my little flower?” said he, as with a loving smile he stooped to kiss her.

They led him to the tea-table; and when the repast was ended, they began to talk over their preparations for leaving home.

“Cher papa, how long before we shall go to Paris?” inquired Floracita.

“In two or three weeks, I hope,” was the reply.

“Won’t it be delightful!” exclaimed she.  “You will take us to see ballets and everything.”

“When I am playing and singing fragments of operas,” said Rosabella, “I often think to myself how wonderfully beautiful they would sound, if all the parts were brought out by such musicians as they have in Europe.  I should greatly enjoy hearing operas in Paris; but I often think, Papasito, that we can never be so happy anywhere as we have been in this dear home.  It makes me feel sad to leave all these pretty things,—­so many of them—­”

She hesitated, and glanced at her father.

“So intimately associated with your dear mother, you were about to say,” replied he.  “That thought is often present with me, and the idea of parting with them pains me to the heart.  But I do not intend they shall ever be handled by strangers.  We will pack them carefully and leave them with Madame Guirlande; and when we get settled abroad, in some nice little cottage, we will send for them.  But when you have been in Paris, when you have seen the world and the world has seen you, perhaps you won’t be contented to live in a cottage with your old Papasito.  Perhaps your heads will become so turned with flattery, that you will want to be at balls and operas all the time.”

“No flattery will be so sweet as yours, cher papa,” said Floracita.