“You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive me quite!” Half laughing at him and half crying to him, Bella besought him in the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and so playful and so natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had never grown up, and said, “What a silly little Mouse it is!”

“But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don’t you, Pa?”

“Yes, my dearest.”

“And you don’t feel solitary or neglected, going away by yourself; do you, Pa?”

“Lord bless you! No, my Life!”

“Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!”

So, she leaning on her husband’s arm, they turned homeward by a rosy path which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a bright old song it is, that O ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round!