Her heart was very full.  Vividly she longed to tell him that the love, of which he had discoursed to her, had not come in the least as he had said it would—­summoned by his counsel after he had searched and found the man whom he decided would be best for her to marry.  No; love had not approached her logically, rationally, as result of careful thought by a third party; it had come, instead, as might a burglar, breaking in; an enemy, making an assault upon an unsuspecting city in the night.  She had yielded up the treasures of the casket of her heart without a murmur to the burglar; the city had capitulated without fighting, without even protest.  She was sure he would not find it easy to approve of her selection.

So she was not ready, yet, to tell him; she was not ready to destroy the happiness of this, their day together, as she feared that such a revelation must, inevitably.

“Hard times, father!” she said, temporizing.  “But perhaps, sometime, they shall be changed.  Perhaps I shall be rich, some day.”

“Ah, Anna, no; such thoughts are what they call, up at the park, the—­the—­what is it?  Ah, I have it—­dream of the pipe.  Rich we shall never be, my Anna.”

“But it’s so hard as it is.  Only once-a-while can we be here together.”

“Hard?” said he, and smoothed her hair.  “You must not say that.  It is so sweet when once-a-while it comes!  It makes me so happy—­”

“Dear!”

Depression seized him, now.  Fiercely the thought rose in his mind that while he waited for these meetings with the keenest thoughts of joy, she, on the other hand, must look forward to them with emotions much less purely happy.  That she was glad to be with him he did not doubt; he could not doubt; but what a contrast must his poor rooms offer to the luxurious surroundings of her other days!  It would be only human if she yielded to an impulse to be critical, only human if, against her will, she felt contempt for his dire poverty.  The black thought filled his soul with bitterness.

“Look,” he said, and rose with a sudden gesture almost of despair.  “What must you think of me, my liebschen?  Poor little rooms!  They are no place for you.  Ah, no; for you the grand and beautiful home of Mrs. Vanderlyn!”

His scorn of self was written, now, so plainly on his face, in such fierce lines of deep contempt and loathing, that, as she looked at him, it frightened her.  She, also, rose and lightly clasped her arms about his neck in an appeal.

“There, all the week,” he went on with less virulence, “you have, as her companion, the happy life I wish for you, Ah, your old father does not grudge you that, my liebschen!  And, after all, you do not falter in your love.  My poverty does not make you forget me—­eh?”

“Forget you, father?  These hours are pleasantest of all!  These hours with you here in these rooms which you say are ‘poor’ are far, far pleasanter to me than any hours at Mrs. Vanderlyn’s.”