After Walter’s departure, Florence lived alone as before, in the great dreary house, and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone.

No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy than was her father’s mansion in its grim reality.  The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell which used to set enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking freshness unimpaired.  But Florence bloomed there, like the King’s fair daughter in the story.  Her books, her music, and her daily teachers were her only real companions, except Susan Nipper and Diogenes, and she lived within the circle of her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her.  She could go down to her father’s rooms now without fear of repulse.  She could put everything in order for him, binding little nosegays for his table, changing them as they withered, and he did not come back, preparing something for him every day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat.  Waking in the night, perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down and bring it away.  At another time she would only lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear.

Still no one knew of this.  Her father did not know—­she held it from that time—­how much she loved him.  She was very young, and had no mother, and had never learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she loved him.  She would try to gain that art in time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child.

Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day in a monotony of loneliness until yielding to Susan Nipper’s constant request Florence consented to pay a visit to some friends who lived at Fulham on the Thames.

Just at this time she learned that Walter’s ship was overdue, and no news had been received of her, and, her mind filled with sad forebodings, she went to see old Sol, She found him tearful and desolate, broken down by the weight of his anxiety, refusing to be comforted even by the hopeful words of Captain Cuttle.  So it was with a heavy heart that she went to pay her visit, accompanied by her little maid.

There were some other children staying at the Skettleses.  Children who were frank and happy, with fathers and mothers.  Children who had no restraint upon their love, and showed it freely.  Florence thoughtfully observed them, sought to find out from them what simple art they knew, and she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father how she loved him, and to win his love again.  But all her efforts failed to give her the secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company who were assembled in the house, or among the children of the poor, whom she often visited.