She turned away to hide the tears that would come.  “O papa, you don’t understand me at all, and I scarcely understand myself,” she faltered.  “In some respects you are as conventional as mamma, and are almost a Turk in your ideas of the seclusion of women.  The idea of my wanting public notoriety!  As I feel now, I’d rather go to a convent.”

“We’ll go to dinner first; then a short drive in the park, for you look pale, and I long for a little fresh air myself.  I have been at my desk since seven this morning, and have had only a sandwich.”

“Why do you have to work so hard, papa?”

“I can give you two reasons in a breath,—­you mentioned ‘shopping,’ and my country is at war.  They don’t seem very near of kin, do they?  Documents relating to both converge in my desk, however.”

“Have I sent you more bills than usual?”

“Not more than usual.”

“I believe I’m a fool.”

“I know you are a very pretty little girl, who will feel better after dinner and a drive,” was the laughing reply.

They were soon seated in a quiet family restaurant, but the young girl was too perturbed in mind to enjoy the few courses ordered.  With self-reproach she recognized the truth that she was engaged in the rather unusual occupation of becoming acquainted with her father.  He sat before her, with his face, generally stern and inscrutable, softened by a desire to be companionable and sympathetic.  According to his belief she now had “a mood,” and after a day or two of quiet retirement from the world she would relapse into her old enjoyment of social attention, which would be all the deeper for its brief interruption.

Mr. Vosburgh was of German descent.  In his daily life he had become Americanized, and was as practical in his methods as the shrewd people with whom he dealt, and whom he often outwitted.  Apart from this habit of coping with life just as he found it, he had an inner nature of which few ever caught a glimpse,—­a spirit and an imagination deeply tinged with German ideality and speculation.  Often, when others slept, this man, who appeared so resolute, hard, and uncompromising in the performance of duties, and who was understood by but few, would read deeply in metaphysics and romantic poetry.  Therefore, the men and women who dwelt in his imagination were not such as he had much to do with in real life.  Indeed, he had come to regard the world of reality and that of fancy as entirely distinct, and to believe that only here and there, as a man or woman possessed something like genius, would there be a marked deviation from ordinary types.  The slight differences, the little characteristic meannesses or felicities that distinguished one from another, did not count for very much in his estimation.  When a knowledge of such individual traits was essential to his plans, he mastered them with singular keenness and quickness of comprehension.  When such knowledge was unnecessary, or as soon as it ceased to be of service,