From that time the tie between father and daughter grew very strong and tender indeed.Ellinor,it is true,divided her affection between her baby sister and her papa;but he,caring little for babies,had only a theoretic regard for his younger child,while the elder absorbed all his love.Every day that he dined at home Ellinor was placed opposite to him while he ate his late dinner;she sat where her mother had done during the meal,although she had dined and even supped some time before on the more primitive nursery fare.It was half pitiful,half amusing,to see the little girl's grave,thoughtful ways and modes of speech,as if trying to act up to the dignity of her place as her father's companion,till sometimes the little head nodded off to slumber in the middle of lisping some wise little speech."Old-fashioned,"the nurses called her,and prophesied that she would not live long in consequence of her old-fashionedness.But instead of the fulfilment of this prophecy,the fat bright baby was seized with fits,and was well,ill,and dead in a day!Ellinor's grief was something alarming,from its quietness and concealment.She waited till she was left--as she thought--alone at nights,and then sobbed and cried her passionate cry for "Baby,baby,come back to me--come back;"till every one feared for the health of the frail little girl whose childish affections had had to stand two such shocks.Her father put aside all business,all pleasure of every kind,to win his darling from her grief.No mother could have done more,no tenderest nurse done half so much as Mr.
Wilkins then did for Ellinor.
If it had not been for him she would have just died of her grief.As it was,she overcame it--but slowly,wearily--hardly letting herself love anyone for some time,as if she instinctively feared lest all her strong attachments should find a sudden end in death.Her love--thus dammed up into a small space--at last burst its banks,and overflowed on her father.It was a rich reward to him for all his care of her,and he took delight--perhaps a selfish delight--in all the many pretty ways she perpetually found of convincing him,if he had needed conviction,that he was ever the first object with her.
The nurse told him that half an hour or so before the earliest time at which he could be expected home in the evenings,Miss Ellinor began to fold up her doll's things and lull the inanimate treasure to sleep.Then she would sit and listen with an intensity of attention for his footstep.Once the nurse had expressed some wonder at the distance at which Ellinor could hear her father's approach,saying that she had listened and could not hear a sound,to which Ellinor had replied:
"Of course you cannot;he is not your papa!"Then,when he went away in the morning,after he had kissed her,Ellinor would run to a certain window from which she could watch him up the lane,now hidden behind a hedge,now reappearing through an open space,again out of sight,till he reached a great old beech-tree,where for an instant more she saw him.And then she would turn away with a sigh,sometimes reassuring her unspoken fears by saying softly to herself,"He will come again to-night."Mr.Wilkins liked to feel his child dependent on him for all her pleasures.He was even a little jealous of anyone who devised a treat or conferred a present,the first news of which did not come from or through him.
At last it was necessary that Ellinor should have some more instruction than her good old nurse could give.Her father did not care to take upon himself the office of teacher,which he thought he foresaw would necessitate occasional blame,an occasional exercise of authority,which might possibly render him less idolized by his little girl;so he commissioned Lady Holster to choose out one among her many protegees for a governess to his daughter.Now,Lady Holster,who kept a sort of amateur county register-office,was only too glad to be made of use in this way;but when she inquired a little further as to the sort of person required,all she could extract from Mr.Wilkins was:
"You know the kind of education a lady should have,and will,I am sure,choose a governess for Ellinor better than I could direct you.
Only,please,choose some one who will not marry me,and who will let Ellinor go on making my tea,and doing pretty much what she likes,for she is so good they need not try to make her better,only to teach her what a lady should know."Miss Monro was selected--a plain,intelligent,quiet woman of forty--and it was difficult to decide whether she or Mr.Wilkins took the most pains to avoid each other,acting with regard to Ellinor,pretty much like the famous Adam and Eve in the weather-glass:when the one came out the other went in.Miss Monro had been tossed about and overworked quite enough in her life not to value the privilege and indulgence of her evenings to herself,her comfortable schoolroom,her quiet cozy teas,her book,or her letter-writing afterwards.By mutual agreement she did not interfere with Ellinor and her ways and occupations on the evenings when the girl had not her father for companion;and these occasions became more and more frequent as years passed on,and the deep shadow was lightened which the sudden death that had visited his household had cast over him.As I have said before,he was always a popular man at dinner-parties.His amount of intelligence and accomplishment was rare in --shire,and if it required more wine than formerly to bring his conversation up to the desired point of range and brilliancy,wine was not an article spared or grudged at the county dinner-tables.Occasionally his business took him up to London.Hurried as these journeys might be,he never returned without a new game,a new toy of some kind,to "make home pleasant to his little maid,"as he expressed himself.