Marian looked with awakening curiosity and interest at the face before her, yet it was the familiar visage of her father.  She had seen it all her life, but now felt that she had never before seen it in its true significance—­its strong lines, square jaw, and quiet gray eyes, with their direct, steady gaze.  He had come and gone before her daily, petted her now and then a little, met her requests in the main good-humoredly, paid her bills, and would protect her with his life; yet a sort of dull wonder came over her as she admitted to herself that he was a stranger to her.  She knew little of his work and duty, less of his thoughts, the mental realm in which the man himself dwelt.  What were its landmarks, what its characteristic features, she could not tell.  One may be familiar with the outlines of a country on a map, yet be ignorant of the scenery, productions, inhabitants, governing forces, and principles.  Her very father was to her but a man in outline.  She knew little of the thoughts that peopled his brain, of the motives and principles that controlled his existence, giving it individuality, and even less of the resulting action with which his busy life abounded.  Although she had crossed the threshold of womanhood, she was still to him the self-pleasing child that he had provided for since infancy; and he was, in her view, the man to whom, according to the law of nature and the family, she was to look for the maintenance of her young life, with its almost entire separation in thoughts, pleasures, and interests.  She loved him, of course.  She had always loved him, from the time when she had stretched forth her baby hands to be taken and fondled for a few moments and then relinquished to others.  Practically she had dwelt with others ever since.  Now, as a result, she did not understand him, nor he her.  She would miss him as she would oxygen from the air.  Now she began to perceive that, although he was the unobtrusive source of her life, home, education, and the advantages of her lot, he was not impersonal, but a human being as truly as herself.  Did he want more from her than the common and instinctive affection of a child for its parent?  If to this she added intelligent love, appreciation, and sympathy, would he care?  If she should be able to say, “Papa, I am kin to you, not merely in flesh and blood, but in mind, hope, and aspiration; I share with you that which makes your life, with its success and failure, not as the child who may find luxurious externals curtailed or increased, but as a sympathetic woman who understands the more vital changes in spiritual vicissitude,”—­if she could truthfully say all this, would he be pleased and reveal himself to her?

Thoughts like these passed through her mind as they dined together and drove in the park.  When at last they returned and sat in the dimly-lighted parlor, Mr. Vosburgh recognized that her “mood” had not passed away.

CHAPTER III.