“O Mamma!” cried the child, her tone speaking deeply wounded feeling, “if you could know how I loved him!—­my dear, dear father!  Oh, why am I left behind? why could I not go with him?”

“And leave your mother all alone!” was the reproachful rejoinder.  “But you always loved him best; never cared particularly for me; and never will I suppose,” she added, going into a stronger paroxysm than before.

“O mamma, don’t!” cried Evelyn, in sore distress.  “I love you dearly too; and you are all I have left.”  She threw an arm about her mother’s neck as she spoke, but was thrust impatiently aside.

“You are suffocating me; can’t you see it?  Help me to bed in the next room, and call Hannah.  She perhaps will have sense enough to apply restoratives.”

But both Lester and Elsie had come to her aid, and the former, taking her in his arms, carried her to the bed, while Evelyn hastened to call the nurse who had for the past week or two assisted in the care of him who now no longer needed anything but the last sad offices.

Laura’s grief continued to be very violent in its manifestations, yet did not hinder her from taking an absorbing interest in the preparation of her own and Evelyn’s mourning garments.  She was careful that they should be of the deepest black, the finest quality, the most fashionable cut; to all of which the bereaved child—­a silent undemonstrative mourner—­was supremely indifferent.  Her mother noted it with surprise, for Evelyn was a child of decided opinions and wont to be fastidious about her attire.

“Flounces on this skirt, I suppose, Miss? how many?” asked the dressmaker.

“Just as mamma pleases; I do not care in the least,” returned Evelyn.

“Why Eva, what has come over you?” queried her mother.  “It is something new for you to be so indifferent in regard to your dress.”

“You are the only one I care to please now, mamma,” replied the little girl in tremulous tones.  “I think there is no one else likely to be interested in the matter.”

Laura was touched.  “You are a good child,” she said; “and I think you may well trust everything to my taste; it is considered excellent by my friends and acquaintance.”

With thoughtfulness beyond her years Evelyn presently drew her mother aside, out of earshot of the dressmaker, and whispered, “Mamma dear, don’t put too much expense on me; you know there is no one to earn money for us now.”

“No, but he cannot have left us poor,” rejoined the mother; “for I know his business has paid very well indeed for years past.  And of course his wife and child inherit all he has left.”

“I do not know!  I do not care!” cried Evelyn, hot tears streaming from her eyes.  “What is money without papa to help us enjoy it?”

“Something that it is very convenient, indeed absolutely necessary, to have in this practical world, as you will know when you are older and wiser,” returned her mother, with some severity of tone; for Evelyn’s words had seemed to her like a reproach, and an insinuation that Eric’s daughter was a deeper and more sincere mourner for him than his widow.