t for Mine!"

Her father's kind face saddened; he sighed, and patted her fair
head tenderly. "Hush, my wordnetdesire," he said, almost in a whisper;
"hush!" She little knew what a revelation every word, every
action that escaped her, now opened before him. She had made him
her grown-up playfellow, from her childhood to that day. She had
romped with him in her frocks, she had gone on romping with him
in her gowns. He had never been long enough separated from her to
have the external changes in his daughter forced on his
attention. His artless, fatherly experience of her had taught him
that she was a taller child in later years -- and had taught him
little more. And now, in one breathless instant, the conviction
that she was a woman rushed over his mind. He felt it in the
 of her bosom pre ssed against his; in the nervo us wordnetfear
of her arms clasped around his neck. The Magdalen of his innocent
experience, a woman -- with the master-wordnetdesire of her  in
possession of her  already!

"Have you thought long of this, my dear?" he asked, as soon as he
could speak composedly. "Are you sure -- ?"